Patent ID: 7109950

Claim:
An apparatus for providing data for display in a gradation display on a display panel during display periods of time, the data being displayed by light emission or non-light emission, each display period of time constituting one field, each field being divided into a plurality of subfields, the display panel having a plurality of column electrodes and a plurality of row electrodes intersecting the column electrodes to define pixels, said apparatus comprising: a multigradation processing device for processing input pixel data of i bits into pixel data of j bits by a multigradation process, where i>j; a memory for storing one field of the processed pixel data; a control circuit for sequentially designating one period of time of the plurality of subfields within the display period of time and sequentially designating one row of the display panel, and for causing said memory to read the processed pixel data corresponding to the designated row in the field of pixel data stored in said memory; a converter for individually converting the read pixel data of each pixel of the designated row into bit train data indicative of the light emission or non-light emission of each of the pixels on the display panel corresponding to the designated row, the bit train data having k bits, where k>j; and a driver, responsive to the bit train data, for generating in parallel row data for each pixel of the designated row during the designated period of time, to drive the display panel so that all rows of the display panel are scanned in each subfield.