Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Masaki Shimizu

Yasumori Kuromizu

Yutaka Inoue

Shuhki Ohtani

Takashi Yoshii

Mitsuhiro Moriyasu

Masashi Yokota

Hideto Takeuchi

Koji Hamamoto

Masahiro Arai

Tamotsu Satoh

Hideyuki Chikazawa

Yoshiyuki Tabata

Kohji Ohtsuka

Norikazu Osaki

Kohei Nanbu

Akihiko Kitajima

Ryoh Hatakeyama

Tsutomu Naito

Masaki Okazaki

Hiroki Fukai

Toru Namiki

Kazuya Idei

A fluorescent tube is prevented from being wrongly attached and broken when being attached, and luminance nonuniformity of backlight due to luminance difference generated in a tube axis direction of the fluorescent tube is reduced. A backlight deviceis provided with a plurality of fluorescent tubeshaving electrodesat both ends; a bundling memberfor bundling wiringspulled out from the electrodeon one side of two or more of the fluorescent tubes; and a conducting meansfor achieving conduction between the electrodes of the two fluorescent tubes among the fluorescent tubesby being connected with the bundling member. The conducting meanspermits a current to be carried between the electrodes of the two fluorescent tubes, which are bundled by the one bundling member, and the conducting means are arranged on inverter circuit substrate, respectively, not to be adjacent to each other.

Backlight device, liquid crystal display device, and method for assembling backlight device

A fluorescent tube is prevented from being wrongly attached and broken when being attached, and luminance nonuniformity of backlight due to luminance difference generated in the tube axis direction of the fluorescent tube is reduced. In a backlight device (), a plurality of fluorescent tube sets, each of which is composed of four fluorescent tubes () having electrodes () at the both ends and a pair of lamp holders () storing portions close to the both electrodes at the both ends of the four fluorescent tubes (), and the fluorescent tube sets are driven by a pair of inverter circuit board. The backlight device () is provided with a power transmitting member (), which is connected to electrodes () at the ends on one side of the two fluorescent tubes (), for every two adjacent fluorescent tubes configuring the fluorescent tube set, gathers wirings () from the electrodes () at the ends and transmits power; and a conduction member (), which is connected to the electrodes () on the other side of the two fluorescent tubes and permits a current to flow between the electrodes at the other ends. In the lamp holder (), the power transmitting members () and the conductive members () are alternately arranged.

Backlight device and liquid crystal display device

A frame is narrowed by a technically reasonable design, without technical limitation for frame narrowing which tends to be considered troublesome when bent-tube type fluorescent tubes having U-shaped bent portions are to be alternately arranged to face each other nor without the trouble of storing the bent-type fluorescent tubes in a chassis while being manufactured. A backlight device () is provided with a backlight chassis () wherein a plurality of fluorescent tubes () having electrodes are arranged and stored, and an inverter circuit board is arranged on the rear surface of the backlight chassis (). Furthermore, the backlight device () is provided with a storing section (), which is attached to the backlight chassis () by storing a conductive holding section for holding the electrodes. With the storing section () attached to the backlight chassis (), the electrodes of the fluorescent tubes () are electrically connected to a light source lighting circuit board arranged on the rear surface of the backlight chassis ().

Backlight device and liquid crystal displaying device

A plurality of clipping portions which clip a plurality of lamps to be juxtaposed are provided on one face, and a mounting portion to be mounted on a supporting member by which the lamps are supported, and holding projecting portions for holding positions of the clipping portions with respect to the supporting member are provided, and two flexible portions which can bend in a direction in which a distance between the supporting sections is changed are provided between at least two clipping portions.

Clip and illuminant device

A driving apparatus and a driving method are disclosed that are capable of uniformly lighting each entire fluorescent tube irrespective of the length or number of fluorescent tubes when simultaneously driving a plurality of fluorescent tubes in a fluorescent tube lighting apparatus. When two inverter circuits having respective transformers are provided at both ends of a fluorescent tube to light the fluorescent tube by push-pull driving, feedback windings of transformers not used in self-excited oscillation of each inverter circuit are connected together, with the transformer connection that connects together the feedback windings being either in-phase or in opposite phase, and the method of connection for fluorescent tubes connecting to secondary windings of each transformer can be changed in accordance with that connection method.

Inverter circuit, fluorescent tube lighting apparatus, backlight apparatus, and liquid crystal display

An object is to prevent fall of a lamp clip due to an external factor such as vibration or impact. It is structured that a reflective memberprovided inside a backlight device has fitting holeseach including an insertion holeand a holding hole, a pair of fitting holesare provided in a direction where the holding holeswith respect to the insertion holesare mutually opposed, a pair of locking sectionson a substrateof a lamp clipare inserted into the insertion holesin the fitting holes, and thereafter, the lamp clipis rotated counter-clockwise or clockwise, so that the locking sectionsare held in the holding hole

Backlight device, lamp clip, and chassis for backlight

Inverter circuit, fluorescent bulb operating device, backlight device, and liquid crystal display device

In order to control light emission of light emitting diodes, current dividing circuits are used to supply currents of a substantially fixed level to all lines. Light emitting diodes are arranged in groups of a predetermined number of LEDs in series, and sets of the light emitting diodes connected to the first line and sets of the light emitting diodes connected to the second line are laid out on the same straight line so as to form a single row. Substrates with these formed thereon are arranged adjacent to each other in the direction of the rows, so that sets of the light emitting diodes connected to the first line and sets of the light emitting diodes connected to the second line are arranged alternately. With this configuration, it is possible to provide a backlight device with a plurality of LED arrays arranged thereon, which can uniformly illuminate the entire screen with light from the LED arrays.

The fluorescent lamp retaining member retains two lamp units each including two fluorescent lamps that have electrodes at both ends thereof, a bundling member that bundles a wire from each of electrodes at one end of the two fluorescent lamps, and a conductive member that connects electrodes at the other end of the two fluorescent lamps through a conductive path. The fluorescent lamp retaining member holds the vicinity of the central of each of the fluorescent lamps so arranged in parallel as to set the bundling members in the same direction. The fluorescent lamp retaining member allows one retained lamp unit to rotate relative to the other retained lamp unit adjacent thereto, and so retains the lamp units adjacent to each other that the bundling members and conductive members are arranged alternately after one lamp unit has been rotated.

Lamp retaining member, backlight device, liquid crystal display apparatus, and fluorescent lamp retaining method

A flat panel display apparatus is provided which is capable of conducting a transition of a display unit between the landscape and portrait orientation at one step and rotating around the substantial central portion of said display unit. The flat panel display apparatus includes a thin flat display unit having a rectangular display screen thereon; a stand unit for supporting said display unit; and a horizontal rotary pin which is secured to the display unit on its rear side in the substantial center thereof and which holds said display unit so that display unit is rotatable by at least 90&#xb0; relative to the stand unit and is characterized in that said display apparatus is provided with translational motion means which causes the translational motion of said display unit in a vertical direction in an interlocking manner with the rotation of said horizontal rotary pin secured to the display unit.

Thin-type display device

To compensate for uneven brightness in the longitudinal direction of fluorescent lamps of a backlight unit and achieve a display screen with an even brightness, a reflection unit of the backlight unit, the fluorescent tube surface of the fluorescent lamps or a diffusion unit is used to either reduce the reflectance, transmittance, or radiation brightness of the high-voltage side of the fluorescent lamps or increase the reflectance, transmittance, or radiation brightness of the low-voltage side thereof so as to compensate for uneven brightness of the illumination light and thereby ensure an even brightness. For example, dot pattern regions D, Dand D, i.e., the regions whose density increases in stages, are imparted to the portion of a reflection layerof the backlight unit with a relatively high brightness. As for the display device, on the other hand, the display image data supplied to a liquid crystal panel or the aperture ratio of the liquid crystal panel is controlled, for example, to compensate for uneven brightness in the longitudinal direction of the fluorescent lamps and ensure an even brightness.

Backlight unit and liquid crystal display unit using backlight unit

Luminance irregularities caused by the weight of the optical members in a backlight apparatus are reduced. A lighting apparatus comprises optical membersand, a casing in which the optical membersandand a lampare disposed, a first memberformed in optical membersand, and a second memberformed in the casing for attaching the optical membersandto the casing by cooperating with the first member. The first and second membersandare provided in positions such that no upward stress is applied to the optical members due to their own weights at the bottom in a vertical direction in the plane of the display screen, both in a basic position and a first stop position of the lighting apparatus, the latter position being reached by rotation of the apparatus from the basic position in the plane of the display screen.

Lighting system and liquid crystal backlight device

A liquid crystal display device has a plurality of lamps, a light diffusion plate and/or an optical sheet, a shield portion for accommodating the lamps, the light diffusion plate and/or the optical sheet. There is a liquid crystal display panel located opposite to one side of the light diffusion plate and/or the optical sheet opposed each with the other side to the lamps. The light diffusion plate and/or the optical sheet each have a vent, and a lamp chamber formed in the lamp-accommodating side of the light diffusion plate and/or the optical sheet. There is an LCD panel chamber formed in the LCD panel-disposing side of the light diffusion plate and/or an optical sheet that communicate with each other through the vent of the light diffusion plate and/or optical sheet.

Growing community of inventors

Tochigi, Japan

Masaki Shimizu