A High Speed and Low Chip Surface Temperature Column Driver for Large TFT LCD TV Applications

Power consumption increment in column driver IC that drives the large TFT LCD panel, makes chip surface temperature higher and is the root cause of shortening the chip life time and package burn-out. To reduce the surface temperature of column driver IC, a new driving scheme has been developed to cut down panel AC power which is the largest portion of power consumption of column driver IC. Compared with the previous charge sharing method, proposed new driving method reduces the power consumption in the chip up to 50% that of conventional ones and decreases the surface temperature and increases the driving speed of the column driver IC. This method has been designed and verified by HSPICE simulation and applies to 8-bit 720-outputs column driver IC. Test chips with the proposed and conventional method have been fabricated in a 0.35 mum 18 V high voltage CMOS technology. Experiments have been performed with 37-inch WXGA TFT LCD TV panel that mounted the fabricated column driver IC. Experimental results show that power consumption in the chip, driving speed and chip surface temperature of the proposed driver, is 14.5% smaller, almost 4~5degC lower and about 0.93 us shorter than that of conventional charge sharing method, respectively.