Resonant plasma display panel driver with voltage boost technique

A simple sustain driver with energy recovery function has been proposed based on a voltage boost technique for plasma display panels (PDPs). The proposed driver, decoupled between the two electrodes, consists of three semiconductor devices, one resonant inductor, and one external capacitor for energy source in the respective X and Y side. The proposed driver has inherent protection function from possible surge voltage caused by parasitic inductance resonance, resulting in no additional protective devices. Thus, the developed sustain circuit with favorable decoupled configuration can be implemented with low-cost and simple structure based on reduced number of components, compared to conventional driver approaches. Since the proposed driver is designed to use the reactive energies in both the capacitor and the inductor, the voltage stress of the capacitor is considerably reduced. Furthermore, the driver utilizing boosting function provides immunity to inevitable parasitic components in circuit components and patterns due to the voltage boost operation. Moreover, the proposed driver, which has higher resonance inductance and lower current stresses, is more fit to high-frequency sustain operations with increased number of sustain pulses for higher brightness than conventional approaches.