Pelikon Limited

Stefan Michael Ross

Christopher James Newton Fryer

A controller for use with a multi-segment electroluminescent display. Control signals C&#x2013;CN control a plurality of half H-bridges H and Hc, the terminals of the half H-bridges being connected respectively to ground and to a high voltage DC supply. One of said half H-bridges provides a common output Vcommon and the remaining H-bridges provide drive voltages V&#x2013;VN for the segments of the display. The H bridges are driven by an oscillatorso that an AC voltage is selectively applied to the segments of the display. A power supplyprovides a predetermined amount of power per unit area of the display. This is controlled by an area summation enginehaving a segment data input, a segment counter and a memory containing area data corresponding to the segment(s) of the display. Based on the input from the segment data input, the area(s) of the segment(s) that are to be lit are obtained from the memory and summed to provide the total area to be lit. This is fed to the power supply, which then feeds the correct amount of power to displayvia the half H-bridges.

Control of electroluminescent displays

A controlleris provided for use with a multi-segment electroluminescent display. Control signals C&#x2013;Ccontrol a plurality of half H-bridges H&#x2013;H, the terminals of the half H-bridges being connected respectively to groundand to a high voltage DC supplyso that the half H-bridges each provide an AC voltage. One of said half H-bridges provides a common output Vcommon and the remaining H-bridges provide drive voltages V&#x2013;Vfor the segments of the display. During each cycle, the controllercauses the drive outputs V&#x2013;Vto either be in phase or in anti-phase with the common output Vcommon. This selectively turns the segments on and off at a rate much higher than the human eye can perceive. The brightness of the segments is controlled by varying the proportion of the time that each segment is illuminated.

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Westfield Lane, United Kingdom

Stefan Michael Ross