Patent ID: 7109953

Claim:
A drive circuit for driving an active matrix type organic EL display panel, including a plurality of matrix-arranged pixel circuits, each including an organic EL element, a capacitor for storing a voltage value corresponding to a drive current value of said organic EL element, and transistors for outputting the drive current to said organic EL element correspondingly to the voltage value, comprising: a plurality of current drive circuits having output pins connected to data lines or column lines of said organic EL display panel, for generating charging currents for charging said capacitors of said pixel circuits to the voltage values; and a write control circuit for performing a write control for storing the voltage value in said capacitor and a reset control for resetting the voltage value in said capacitor; and a D/A converter circuit, wherein a plurality of said current drive circuits, including current value regulator circuits for regulating output currents discharged from said output pins or sunk to said output pins, respectively, are connected to a plurality of said pixel circuits, in arranged at least dispersed positions on said screen of said organic EL display panel, through said output pins, wherein said D/A converter circuit is supplied with a current from said current value regulator circuit, and converts a display data into an analog current value according to the current from said current value regulator circuit, wherein said current value regulator circuit is capable of regulating a current value according to externally set at least 1-bit data and is responsive to a current to be outputted to said output pin or a basic current of the current to be outputted to said output pin to regulate the output current, wherein the output current is generated according to the analog current value and sunk to said output pin, and the plurality of said current drive circuits have said current value regulator circuits, respectively, and wherein said current value regulator circuit includes a switch circuit for ON/OFF controlling the data stored in a memory and a current value generator circuit for generating a predetermined current value according to the current to be outputted to said output pin or the basic current of the current to be outputted to said output pin and an ON/OFF operation of said switch circuit and outputting the predetermined current value to said D/A converter circuit, and said memory is non-volatile memory written with the data or a volatile memory written with the data transferred from a non-volatile memory provided externally of said current value regulator circuit.