High performance and low cost single switch energy recovery display driver for AC plasma display panel (IECON '04)

A new high-performance and low cost single switch energy recovery display driver for an AC plasma display panel (PDP) is proposed. Since it is composed of only one auxiliary power switch, two small inductors, and eight diodes compared with the conventional circuit consisting of four auxiliary power switches, two small inductors, eight power diodes, and two external capacitors, it features a much simpler structure and lower cost. Nevertheless, since the root-mean-square (RMS) value of the inductor current is very small, it also has very desirable advantages such as a low conduction loss and high efficiency. Furthermore, there are no serious voltage-drops caused by the large gas-discharge current with the aid of the discharge current compensation, which can also greatly reduce the current flowing through power switches and maintain the panel to light at a lower sustaining voltage. In addition, all main power switches are turned on under the zero-voltage switching (ZVS) and thus, the proposed circuit has an improved EMI, increased reliability, and high efficiency. Therefore, the proposed circuit will be well suited to the wall hanging PDP TV. To confirm the validity of the proposed circuit, circuit operations, features, and design considerations are presented and verified experimentally on a 6-inch PDP, 50 kHz-switching frequency, and sustaining voltage 141 V based prototype.