An overview of entire driving circuits for plasma display panels

Intensive industrial and academic researches have, in the last thirty years, matured plasma display panels to the successful display product for commercial flat screen television sets. Along with development of panel manufacturing technology, recent advances in the development of electronics circuitry drivers have paved the way for achieving better performance, higher efficiency, simpler structure, and lower cost. A substantial number of notable plasma driving circuits have been developed in various parts of the driver, however, most of which have been focused on their own structures and operational principles without giving overall impressions related with other approaches. This paper is an attempt to provide insights into these diverse drivers of the plasma display panels by presenting an overview of the driver structures. The developed driving schemes focused on different sections, including the reset circuits, the path switches, the sustain circuits, and the address circuits, are covered in this paper. Selected drivers in each class are analyzed and key structural characteristics are identified. Issues related to the practical implementation are also discussed.