Display buffer brings LCD TVs up to speed

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Aug 9, 2005

Programmable display buffer widens viewing area in Samsung's advanced TFT-LCD televisions matching plasma performance.

Intersil's groundbreaking programmable buffer has been designed into the leader in TFT-LCD technology Samsung's Super-PVA TFT-LCD television sets.

The device's 14-channel programmable and switchable configuration allows very fast (less than 1us) switching between gamma curves, allowing preset gamma curves to be toggled back-and-forth to optimise panel performance.

This capability gives viewers the ability to maximise their flat panel viewing angle and allows them to select the optimum solution for their viewing enjoyment.

Samsung's Super-PVA flat panel television will be the first to match the wider viewing angle found on plasma display panels (PDPs), enabling TFT-LCDs to meet or exceed PDP picture quality in all categories of screen performance.

Viewing angles of almost 180 degrees will be possible.

"Intersil's ISL24006 programmable buffer is clearly a leadership product that helped us achieve the goal of offering our customers superior image quality over the widest possible angle of view", said Brian Berkeley, Vice President of Advanced Technology for Samsung Electronics' LCD Business.

"Our new Super-PVA technology delivers the best TFT-LCD performance ever, and we are pleased with Intersil's role in helping us to achieve this new performance standard".

"Samsung is making a huge technological leap with its new Super-PVA flat panel television, and we're very proud that our programmable buffer is at the heart of this advancement in picture quality and viewing angle", said Simon Prutton, Vice President of Marketing for Intersil's Analog Signal Processing Products Group.

"This extraordinary part - another industry first - is yet another leadership product in our rapidly expanding portfolio of high performance display devices".

Intersil's ISL24006 is a 14-channel programmable, switchable TFT-LCD buffer with integrated four-channel static gamma drivers that delivers a complete 18-channel total gamma solution for TFT-LCD displays.

The configuration allows very fast switching between two preset gamma curves within a 10us line rate, which makes this device ideal for optimising panel performance.

The buffer is divided into two banks of seven generators; each bank has its own separate high and low reference inputs, with integrated buffers (four static gamma drivers) to drive the column driver internal DAC resistor string to within 0.2V from the top and bottom rails.

An output multiplexer is used to switch between the two curves in less than 1us.

Switching is controlled using an external select pin.

The device also includes an I2C interface for programming the offset values.