(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display.
(2) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (“LCD”) is a widely used type of flat panel display. The LCD typically includes two display panels, which are provided with electric field generating electrodes, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two display panels. In the LCD, voltages are applied to the electric field generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer. Due to the generated electric field, liquid crystal molecules in liquid crystal layer are aligned, and polarization of light incident to the liquid crystal layer is controlled to display a desired image.
The LCDs also typically include switching elements connected to pixel electrodes, and signal lines, such as gate lines and data lines, that control the switching elements to apply data voltages to the pixel electrodes.
The LCD receives an input image signal from an external graphics controller, the input image signal contains luminance information for each of the pixels, and the luminance has grays from a given number of grays. Each pixel is supplied with the data voltage, which corresponds to desired luminance information to display the image. The data voltage applied to the pixel is a pixel voltage, and each pixel thereby displays a luminance representing a gray of the image signal according to the pixel voltage. Thus, a range of the pixel voltage applicable to the particular liquid crystal display is determined according to a driver included in the LCD.
The driver of the LCD is typically mounted on one of the display panels, in a form of integrated circuit (“IC”) chips, or may be installed on a flexible circuit film and attached to the display panel. Generally, the cost of the driver is a significant portion of the manufacturing cost of the LCD. In addition, the cost of the driver of the liquid crystal display increases as the number of data lines for supplying the data voltage to the pixels increases.
Also, to improve the display quality of LCDs, contrast ratio, viewing angle and response speed need to be improved.