A field-interlaced real-time gas-discharge flat-panel display with gray scale

We have achieved a field-interlaced real-time gray-scale display on a 77 × 222-element Self-Scan Plasma Panel®. The 2:1 field-interlacing at 60 fields/s was obtained by stepping the priming glow at the horizontal line rate (one line per 125 µs) first along the odd-numbered cathodes (1 to 221) during one field and then along the even-numbered ones during the other. The display is operated in a line-at-a-time mode synchronized with the cathode stepping. MOS memory and buffer-memory circuits are provided for every vertical display anode to sample and apply a measure of the incoming video signal to the control of the anode current. The display anodes are connected to ground through IGFETS with the sampled information at their gates. The effective γ of the system is unity. The panel demonstrated a highlight luminance of 25 fL with an orange light output and a gray scale of more than eight levels.