Denso Corporation

Yasuaki Hirokawa

Tadashi Hattori

Nobuei Ito

Kazuhiro Inoguchi

Takashi Hagiwara

Ryonosuke Tera

Daisuke Itomura

Hayato Nagaya

A plasma generating apparatus includes: a power supply one of whose electrodes is connected to vacuum chamber walls of N vacuum chambers; an oscillator which outputs a pulse signal at every predetermined period; N pulse amplifying circuits which are connected in parallel to the oscillator as well as to the other electrode of the power supply, and each of which amplifies the pulse signal and supplies the amplified pulse signal to a corresponding one of N electrodes disposed in the N vacuum chambers; and at least (N-1) timing generating circuits which are connected between the oscillator and at least (N-1) pulse amplifying circuits, and which delay the pulse signal by respectively different delay times so that at any specific time, the pulse signal is supplied to only one of the pulse amplifying circuits.

Plasma generating apparatus

A transparent display panel such as an electroluminescent panel is overlapped on a part of a conventional instrument panel for use in an automobile. The overlapped display panel displays additional information such as navigation maps when required and is turned off under a normal driving condition. When the overlapped transparent display panel is turned off, the conventional instrument panel displays information such as a vehicle speed, an engine speed so and so forth. In this situation, overall luminance on the combined display panel is made uniform throughout a whole surface including the area where the transparent display panel is overlapped. To realize the uniformity of luminance, brightness of back lamps for illuminating the instrument panel is adjusted or a filter having an adequate transparency is used. The combined display panel may be also made by combining a non-transparent display panel with a conventional instrument panel. A filter may be used in this case to attain an overall uniform luminance on the combined display panel.

Combined display panel

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Yasuaki Hirokawa