Patent ID: 8564585

Claim:
A source driver, for driving a display panel, and comprising: a protection unit, for detecting a characteristic parameter of the source driver, and generating a switching signal according to a detection result, wherein the protection unit comprises: an inverter, for receiving the switching signal, and generating an inverting signal of the switching signal; a voltage-dividing circuit, for generating a plurality of divided voltages according to a bandgap voltage non-related to temperature, and selecting one of the divided voltages to serve as a reference voltage according to the switching signal and the inverting signal of the switching signal; a sensing circuit, for detecting the characteristic parameter of the source driver, and generating a sensing voltage according to the detection result; and a comparator, for comparing the sensing voltage and the reference voltage, and generating the switching signal according to a comparison result; a buffer; and a bias voltage generation unit, for determining whether or not to provide a bias voltage to the buffer according to the switching signal, wherein the source driver drives pixels in the display panel through the buffer when the bias voltage generation unit provides the bias voltage to the buffer, and the source driver stops driving the pixels in the display panel when the bias voltage generation unit stops providing the bias voltage to the buffer.