Liquid crystal display and method of driving the same
A liquid crystal display (LCD) device and a driving method thereof for improving a working efficiency of the LCD and reducing manufacturing costs. The liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal display panel having liquid crystal cells at crossings of data lines and gate lines, data integrated circuit supplying pixel data via a plurality of data output channels, a gate integrated circuit driving the gate lines, a channel selector for selecting the plurality of data output channels of the data integrated circuits in accordance with a number of the data lines wherein only the selected data output channels contain the pixel data, and a timing controller for controlling the data integrated circuit and the gate integrated circuit.
1. A liquid crystal display device, comprising:
a liquid crystal display panel having a plurality of liquid crystal cells formed at crossings of a plurality of data lines and a plurality of gate lines, respectively;
a data driver including a first and a second option pins, a plurality of output channels, and a plurality of data channels that are output channels supplying pixel data, supplying pixel data via the plurality of data channels to the plurality of data lines;
a gate driver for driving the plurality of gate lines;
a channel selector for selecting the plurality of data channels of the data driver in accordance with a number of the plurality of data lines, wherein the channel selector applies first to fourth channel control signals via the first and the second option pins in response to a first and a second channel control selection signals, and wherein the selected data channels are supplied with and output pixel data and non-selected data channels of the plurality of output channels are not supplied with and do not output pixel data; and
a timing controller for controlling the data driver and the gate driver.
2. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1 , further comprising a selection signal generator for generating and applying a channel selection signal to select the plurality of data channels.
3. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 2 , wherein the channel selector is built-in the data driver, and wherein the selection signal generator includes first and second selection terminals connected to a first voltage source and a second voltage source to generate and supply a channel selection signal to the built-in channel selector.
4. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1 , wherein the data channels are selected based upon at least one of the number of the plurality of data lines, the number of said data drivers, a width of a tape carrier package mounted to said data driver, and a number of transmission lines located between the timing controller and the data driver.
5. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1 , wherein said channel selector selects one of I and J data channels, wherein I is smaller than J, and J is smaller than the number of output channels.
6. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 1 , wherein said channel selector selects one of I, J, K, and N data channels, wherein I is an integer smaller than J, J is an integer smaller than K, K is an integer smaller than N, and N is the number of output channels.
7. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 6 , wherein said channel selector selects from a first output channel to any one of the Ith, Jth, Kth, and Nth output channels as the data channels and the non-selected data channels of the plurality of output channels are dummy output channels.
8. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 7 , further comprising:
a shift register generating a sampling signal for shifting the pixel data and, at the same time, inputting the pixel data, wherein said channel selector applies an output signal from one of W, X, Y, and Z shift registers (where W, X, Y, and Z are integers) corresponding to the Ith, Jth, Kth, and Nth data channels, respectively, to a start pulse of a next stage data driver.
9. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 6 , wherein said channel selector selects backward from the Nth output channel to any one of I 1 , J 1 , K 1 , and N 1 (where I i , J 1 , K 1 , and N 1 are integers) output channels as the data channels and a remaining number the non-selected data channels of the plurality of output channels are dummy output channels.
10. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 9 , further comprising:
a shift register generating a sampling signal for shifting the pixel data and, at the same time, inputting the pixel data, wherein said channel selector applies a start pulse to one of the I 1 , J 1 , K 1 , and N 1 shift registers of the N shift registers.
11. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 2 , wherein the selection signal generator includes a switch for generating the channel selection signal.
12. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 2 , wherein the selection signal generator includes a dip switch for generating the channel selection signal.
13. The liquid crystal display device according to claim 7 , wherein the dummy output channels are floated.
14. A method of driving a liquid crystal display device comprising:
determining a desired resolution of a display;
selecting a data channel set from a plurality of output channels connected to data lines of a data driver corresponding to the desired resolution of the display, wherein the selecting a data output channel applies first to fourth channel control signals via a first and a second option pins to the data driver in response to a first and a second channel control selection signals;
supplying and outputting pixel data via the data channel set to the data lines, wherein pixel data is not supplied to and are not outputted by non-selected output channels;
enabling one of a plurality of scan lines; and
supplying the pixel data from the data lines to liquid crystal cells connected to the enabled scan line.
15. The method according to claim 14 , further comprising floating the non-selected output channels as dummy output channels.
16. The method according to claim 14 , further comprising setting the non-selected output channels to a constant voltage.
17. The method according to claim 14 , further comprising generating a channel selection signal for selecting the data channels.
18. The method according to claim 17 , further comprising varying a number of selected data channels in accordance with the channel selection signal.
19. The method according to claim 18 , wherein varying the number of selected data channels includes generating a first to a fourth logical values and, when said logical value is a fourth logical value, i data channels are selected, wherein i is a positive integer;
when said logical value is a third logical value, j data channels are selected, wherein j is a positive integer;
when said logical value is a second logical value, k data channels are selected, wherein k is a positive integer; and
when said logical value is a first logical value, m data channels are selected, wherein m is a positive integer.
20. The method according to claim 18 , wherein varying the number of selected data channels includes generating a first and a second logical values such that:
when said logical value is the second value, i data channels are selected, wherein i is a positive integer; and
when said logical value is the first value, j data channels are selected, wherein j is a positive integer smaller than the total number of the plurality of output channels.