Sony Corporation

Nissan Motor Company Limited

Yuji Hayashi

Toshikazu Maekawa

Koichi Hayasaki

Hirofumi Michioka

Masayuki Iida

Satofumi Koike

Katsuhide Uchino

Takashi Noguchi

Takeshi Matsushita

Hisao Hayashi

Yoshio Suzuki

Mitsuo Soneda

Hiroaki Ichikawa

Masafumi Kunii

Takusei Sato

Yoshihiro Hashimoto

Fumiaki Abe

Kenji Nishino

Michio Negishi

Hiroyoshi Tsubota

Hiroyuki Yoshine

Haruhiko Kaneko

Takefumi Ohshima

When a driving circuit for a liquid-crystal display apparatus, especially a switching section and an input-voltage conversion circuit for an analog operation, is formed of circuit devices having large variations in characteristics, such as thin-film transistors, these device-characteristic variations adversely affect circuit operations, and a video-signal switching section may reduce image quality. In the input-voltage conversion circuit, circuit malfunction may occur. In an active-matrix liquid-crystal display apparatus, thin-film transistors having a gate length of 2L and a gate width of 2W are used as circuit devices constituting a driving circuit for driving pixels, especially a circuit portion handling an analog signal, where L indicates the shortest gate length determined from the dielectric strength and W indicates the gate width determined by a ratio of W/L based on the purpose of use according to the shortest gate length L.

Liquid-crystal display apparatus, transistor, and display apparatus

A liquid crystal display device is so constructed that the scattered or reflected incident rays and even the return rays are prevented from entering the transistor part. The device is free from the problem of photoelectric current leakage. The device comprises an active substrate with a pixel transistor TFT thereon and a counter substrate that faces the active substrate via liquid crystal therebetween, wherein light-shielding layers (upper light-shielding layer, and lower light-shielding layer) are formed to be adjacent to the side of the pixel transistor part that faces the counter substrate and adjacent to the side thereof that faces opposite to the counter substrate and wherein the upper light-shielding layer and the lead electrode shield the entire region except the pixel openings from the incident rays that enter the device through the counter substrate.

TFT-LCD having shielding layers on TFT-substrate

An active matrix display device includes a plurality of gate lines and a plurality of data lines, which are arranged in a screen so as to be mutually perpendicular, and pixels arranged at the intersections of both lines, which are selectively driven via the gate lines and the data lines. Also, a vertical driving circuit is disposed outside the screen, and outputs selection pulses sequentially selecting each gate line. In addition, a horizontal driving circuit is similarly disposed outside the screen, and outputs selection pulses sequentially selecting each data line. This horizontal driving circuit includes an address counter for counting the number of clock signals inputted from the exterior and sequentially outputting an address signal, and a plurality of decoders for decoding the address signal and sequentially outputting the selection pulses.

Active matrix display device with peripherally-disposed driving circuits

A system for displaying images of varying resolution (i.e., XGA, SVGA, VGA) on a pixel-addressed screen surrounds selected-resolution images with blanked rows above and below the image and blanked columns to the left and the right of the displayed image. During the vertical blanking period, switches in the vertical scanning circuit blank non-image rows above and below the image, and, during horizontal scanning, switches in the horizontal scanning circuits blank columns on the left and right of each horizontal line so that the display image is bounded by a blanked screen portion. A black signal from a black-signal generator drives each blanked pixel to frame the displayed image in black.

Image display system for displaying images of different resolutions

A torque converter automatic transmission of a motor vehicle is equipped with an overheat prevention system of the torque converter. The system comprises a first unit which detects the temperature of a hydraulic fluid in an oil pan of the transmission; a second unit which detects whether the engine is under high load condition or low load condition; a third unit which derives an overheat judging reference temperature in accordance with the detection of the second unit, the overheat judging reference temperature indicating a first reference temperature upon detection of the high load condition of the engine by the second unit and indicating a second reference temperature upon detection of the low load condition of the engine by the second unit, the first reference temperature being lower than the second reference temperature; and a fourth unit which carries out a given operation to lower the temperature of the torque converter when the temperature of the hydraulic fluid in the oil pan exceeds the overheat judging reference temperature.

System and method for preventing overheat of torque converter

In a liquid crystal display device, positional shifts in patterns formed on an upper substrate and a lower substrate are reduced. The liquid crystal display device is arranged by one pair of substrates whose thermal expansion coefficients are different from each other, the substrates being mutually attached to each other via a predetermined space, predetermined patterns formed on inner surfaces of the respective substrates and positionally aligned to each other, a dimension of one pattern being previously and adjustably set with respect to a dimension of the other pattern based upon a difference existing in the thermal expansion coefficients of the paired substrates; and liquid crystal held in the predetermined space defined by the paired substrates.

Liquid crystal display device capable of improving pattern aligment

A display apparatus comprises arrayed pixels, a vertical-scanning circuit, and a horizontal-scanning circuit. The vertical-scanning circuit outputs selection pulses one after another to sequentially scan pixels in one vertical-scanning period in units of lines. The horizontal-scanning circuit sends and writes a video signal into the pixel line selected by the sequential scanning in one horizontal-scanning period. The vertical-scanning circuit is provided with a switching section to control the consecutive outputs of the selection pulses and to adjust the number of pixel lines to be selected in one horizontal period according to the specification of the video signal used. This configuration enables both noninterlaced drive and interlaced drive.

Display apparatus

A level converting circuit for an input clock signal having a relatively low amplitude comprising a level converting circuit for converting the input clock signal to an output clock signal having a relatively high amplitude, the level converting circuit having an input transistor which has a predetermined threshold voltage, and detecting/offsetting circuit for detecting the threshold voltage of the input transistor and adding an offset voltage in response to the detected threshold voltage to the input clock signal and then for providing the offset input clock signal to the level converting circuit. The novel setup performs clock interfacing of a thin-film transistor integrated circuit device represented by an active-matrix liquid crystal display device at a relatively high speed at a low voltage below 3 V for example. This allows to fully cope with a recent trend of ever reducing operating voltage of a CMOS gate array constituting an external timing generator, eliminating necessity for building a pulse amplifier based especially on high dielectric-strength MOS process into the gate array to eventually reduce size of the chip.

Circuit for converting level of low-amplitude input

A thin film transistor structure for a liquid crystal display device of the active matrix type, wherein leak current is suppressed to stabilize the threshold voltage and the dispersion in the gate capacitance coupling and the channel length are minimized, is disclosed. The liquid crystal display device comprises a substrate having picture element electrodes arranged in a matrix and switching elements for driving the picture element electrodes, another substrate having opposing electrodes thereon and opposed to the former substrate, and a liquid crystal layer held between the substrates. Each switching element has a multi-gate structure wherein two thin film transistors are connected in series and gate electrodes are electrically connected to each other. Each thin film transistor has a lightly doped drain structure wherein a low density impurity region of the same conductivity type as that of a source region or a drain region is provided at least between the source or drain region and a channel region. At least one of a plurality of such low density impurity regions may have a length or a density different from that of the other low density impurity regions so as to assure sufficient on-current while suppressing the leak current.

Liquid crystal display device having LDD structure type thin film

A method for manufacturing an active matrix array substrate having a plurality of pixel drive cells, each pixel drive cell includes a pixel switching element and a capacitor element connected to the pixel switching element in series. The method comprising the inspection steps of storing a charge in the capacitor element and detecting the charge stored in the capacitor element by measuring the voltage and comparing the voltage measured with a reference voltage obtained with a good pixel.

Method for testing active matrix liquid crystal by measuring voltage due

An automatic transmission includes first and second planetary gear sets, and a third planetary gear set which is closer to an output end of the transmission, and which is smaller in diameter than the first and second gear sets. One brake is disposed around the first and second planetary gear sets, and another brake has a pack of brake plates surrounding the smaller third planetary gear set. A transmission case is therefore made gradually smaller toward the output end. This planetary gear system makes it possible to arrange the brakes very compactly, and the tapered transmission case improves the rigidity of the automatic transmission.

Planetary gear system for automatic transmission

A structure of an automatic transmission includes first and second clutches which are arranged radially so that one is surrounded by the other. This arrangement can reduce the size of the automatic transmission. For example, the first clutch has a first clutch drum splined to an input shaft of the transmission, a first clutch hub, and a first clutch pack between the first clutch drum and hub. The second clutch has a second clutch drum received in, and splined to, the first clutch drum, a second clutch hub, and a second clutch pack therebetween. The second clutch pack is surrounded by the first clutch pack. The second clutch further includes a piston which encloses the first clutch drum and which has a pushing portion on one side of the second clutch pack and a pressure receiving portion on the opposite side.

Structure for automatic transmission

An automatic transmission includes a planetary gear system which are coaxially mounted on an intermediate shaft having a first end supported by an input shaft and a second end supported by an output shaft. For example, the planetary gear system includes three planetary gear sets which are all mounted on the intermediate shaft, and an engaging device group includes a combination of first and second clutches and a first brake which are all placed around the input shaft, and a combination of second and third brakes which are placed around the planetary gear sets. The three planetary gear sets are tightly arranged, leaving little or no intervening spaces, between both ends of the intermediate shaft. No clutches and brakes are interposed among the planetary gear sets. Therefore, it is possible to decrease the length of the intermediate shaft, and to reduce gear noises by improving the flexural rigidity of the intermediate shaft.

Automatic transmission

A lubricating system which is for an automatic transmission having planetary gear sets and producing various speeds by selectively engaging friction elements. The lubricating system is provided with a first lubricating circuit which usually supplies lubricant to planetary gear sets, bearings and the like, and a second lubricating circuit which supplies lubricant to friction elements during a shift.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Yuji Hayashi