BACKLIGHT DRIVING APPARATUS AND DRIVING METHOD THEREOF

1 . A backlight driving apparatus comprising:

a driving unit that boosts an input voltage in response to a duty ratio of a control signal and provides the boosted input voltage to a light emitting diode (LED) array; and

a controller that increases the duty ratio of the control signal in a step-by-step fashion by comparing a preset target value with a sequentially increasing step-setting value when a driving start signal is enabled.

2 . The backlight driving apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the step-setting value comprises a plurality of voltage values that sequentially increase.

3 . The backlight driving apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the voltage values are increased regularly or irregularly.

4 . The backlight driving apparatus of claim 3 , further comprising a memory that stores the step-setting value, and the controller reads out the step-setting value from the memory.

5 . The backlight driving apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the controller generates the step-setting value by increasing a preset initial value regularly or irregularly.

6 . The backlight driving apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the preset initial value is a default value assigned as an initial step-setting value in order to prevent a protection function of the controller from being performed.

7 . The backlight driving apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the LED array comprises a plurality of LEDs, and emits light with a brightness proportional to an electric current generated by the boosted input voltage.

8 . A backlight driving method comprising:

allocating an initial value to a step-setting value when a driving start signal is provided in an enabled state;

determining a duty ratio of a control signal by using a difference between the step-setting value and a target value;

increasing the step-setting value; and

increasing the duty ratio of the control signal by using a difference between the increased step-setting value and the target value.

9 . The backlight driving method of claim 8 , wherein the increasing the step-setting value comprises comparing a preset target value with the step setting value, in which the step setting value is increased if the step setting value is smaller than the target value.

10 . The backlight driving method of claim 9 , wherein the initial value is a default value assigned as the initial step-setting value in order to prevent a protection function from being performed.

11 . A backlight driving method comprising:

initializing a hardware unit to set a duty ratio of a control signal, which is determined by a difference between a feedback signal and a preset target value, as a dummy value;

turning off the feedback signal, in which the feedback signal is blocked when a driving start signal is enabled;

sequentially increasing the duty ratio of the control signal by comparing the target value with a sequentially increasing step-setting value; and

providing an input voltage to a light emitting diode (LED) array in response to the duty ratio of the control signal.

12 . The backlight driving method of claim 11 , wherein the step-setting value is sequentially increased between a preset initial value and the target value regularly or irregularly.

13 . The backlight driving method of claim 12 , wherein the preset initial value is a default value assigned as the initial step-setting value in order to prevent a protection function from being performed.

14 . The backlight driving method of claim 11 , wherein the providing the input voltage to the LED array in response to the duty ratio of the control signal comprises;

releasing blocking of the feedback signal when the step-setting value exceeds the target value; and

determining the duty ratio of the control signal by comparing the target value with the feedback signal.