2-D–3-D Switchable Gate Driver Circuit for TFT-LCD Applications

This paper presents a novel 2-D-3-D switchable gate driver circuit for active-matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCDs) applications using the hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) technology. While consisting of 12 thin-film transistors (TFTs), the proposed gate driver circuit includes a pull-up circuit, two alternative circuits, and a key pull-down circuit. To provide a stable output waveform for switching between the 2-D and 3-D modes in AMLCD panel, the proposed circuit can improve the threshold voltage shift of a-Si:H TFT using reversed bias stress. Based on a real circuit integrated on glass with a standard five-mask process applied to a large-sized FHD TFT-LCD panel, the layout area of each gate driver circuit is 359.25 μm × 2296.25 μm. In addition, the power consumption of a 12-stage gate driver circuit is 3.25 and 7.21 mW, while operating at 2-D and 3-D modes, respectively. Measurement results indicate that the output waveform, including output voltage, rising time, and falling time can be stabilized and made almost equal to the initial state after the reliability test at 100 °C over 240 h.