Patent ID: 7369104

Claim:
An apparatus for driving a display panel for each of a plurality of sub-fields constituting each field of an input image signal, said display panel including a plurality of row electrodes corresponding to display lines, a plurality of column electrodes so arranged as to intersect said row electrodes, respectively, and capacitive discharge cells each formed at a point of intersection between said row electrode and said column electrode and operating as a pixel, comprising: reset means for repeatedly applying a predetermined number of times a reset pulse to all of said row electrodes at the start of at least one of said sub-fields thereby allowing all of said discharge cells to repeatedly reset discharge so as to initialize the condition of said discharge cells; address means for applying a scan pulse to said row electrode in each of said sub-fields and a pixel data pulse corresponding to said input image signal to said column electrode, thereby allowing each of said discharge cells to selectively discharge so as to set said discharge cell to either a light-on mode or a light-off mode; and light emission sustain means for repeatedly applying a sustain pulse to said row electrode in each of said sub-fields thereby allowing only said discharge cell in said light-on mode to repeatedly sustain discharge; wherein: only the last sustain pulse of the sustain pulses applied to said row electrode in each sub-field has a fall period constituted by a first sustain voltage drop period in which the voltage value gently lowers, a sustain voltage constant period which follows said first sustain voltage drop period and in which the voltage value remains constant for a predetermined period, and a second sustain voltage drop period which follows said sustain voltage constant period and in which the voltage lowers more gently than in said first sustain voltage drop period; and a reset-pulse fall period in which a voltage value of the last reset pulses repeatedly applied to said row electrode in said sub-field is decreasing includes a first reset voltage drop period in which the voltage value gently lowers, a reset voltage constant period in which the voltage value remains constant for a predetermined period, and a second reset voltage drop period in which the voltage lowers more gently than in said first reset voltage drop period.