TW202040814A - Soft error detection and reboot method for display panel driving circuit and display device for adding soft error detection function caused by electrostatic discharge inside display panel control circuit - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a soft error detection and reboot method for display panel driving circuit, which includes the following steps: utilizing a detection unit inside a control circuit to detect at least one soft error; sending a detection signal to a main control unit by the detection unit while the soft error occurs; and, sending a reboot signal by the main control unit to the control circuit to reboot the control circuit.

Description

Soft error detection and restart method of display panel drive circuit and display device

The present invention relates to the technical field of displays, especially a method for detecting chip soft errors caused by ESD, which is applied to any display panel module.

The Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) is an open standard developed by the MIPI Alliance for the display panel control circuit of mobile electronic devices. Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic diagram of a conventional display panel driving circuit of a mobile electronic device. As shown in FIG. 1, a display panel control circuit 1'is coupled to a host processor 2'based on the MIPI DSI standard protocol. During operation, the display panel control circuit 1'generates a scan timing control signal to control the source driving unit 3'and the gate driving unit 4'according to the video data and the display control signal sent by the host processor 2', so that the source The pole driving unit 3'and the gate driving unit 4'drive the display panel 5'to display a screen.

For mobile electronic devices, it is very important to have an electrostatic discharge (Electro Static Discharge, ESD) protection design. The main reason is that ESD often causes some soft errors in the display panel control circuit 1', such as SoT errors or ECC error. Here, SoT is the abbreviation of Start of Transmission, and ECC is the abbreviation of Error Code Correction. Common ESD hardware protection designs include adding ESD discharge channels. For example, Chinese Patent Publication No. CN101625462A discloses a liquid crystal display, which basically includes a display panel and a display panel control circuit. In particular, a plurality of ground wires are arranged around the display panel control circuit and in the non-display area of the display panel, and a conductive layer is arranged on the side of the display panel and between the circuit board with the display panel control circuit side. According to this design, when the charge accumulated on any object (such as a finger) is transferred to the liquid crystal display, the charge will be discharged to the ground terminal through the conductive layer and the ground wire to achieve electrostatic discharge protection effect.

Common ESD hardware protection design also includes adding an ESD shielding layer. For example, Chinese Patent Publication No. CN1776920A discloses a flat panel display, which basically includes a substrate, a display panel control circuit provided on the substrate, a display panel, and a protective layer provided on the display panel. In addition, an ESD shielding layer is disposed between the display panel and the protection layer. Based on the shape of the non-display area of the flat panel display, the ESD shielding layer is usually designed as a frame shape or a grid member with a frame shape to shield electrostatic discharge from entering the display panel or the display panel control circuit.

The aforementioned two ESD hardware protection designs are limited by manufacturing cost and chip area, resulting in limited ESD resistance. Therefore, the command lock method is another ESD software protection design. When the electronic device is affected by ESD and causes the internal chip to have a soft error, the command lock method uses CMD lock to close the register in the chip. In this case, only the correct unlock command is input to the chip to read and write its internal register to prevent the ESD from changing the state of the register. However, it is easy to understand that the command lock method is only effective for the register, and it cannot show the same effect for other chips or modules of the display.

It can be seen from the above description that there is an urgent need in the art for a soft error detection and restart method for a display panel driving circuit.

One object of the present invention is to add a detection unit to a display panel control circuit, thereby adding a detection function to soft errors caused by ESD in the display panel control circuit.

Another object of the present invention is to use the detecting unit to detect any kind of soft errors, and to enable the detecting unit to cooperate with a host processor to restart the display panel control circuit where the soft error occurs, thereby recovering the display panel control The normal operation of the circuit.

To achieve the above objective, the present invention proposes a soft error detection and restart method of a display panel control circuit, which includes the following steps:

Use a detection unit inside a control circuit to detect at least one soft error;

The detection unit transmits a detection signal to a main control unit when the soft error occurs; and

The main control unit transmits a restart signal to the control circuit to restart the control circuit.

In one embodiment, the control circuit and the main control unit are a display panel control circuit and a host processor, respectively, and they are simultaneously disposed in an electronic device with a display panel.

In one embodiment, the detection unit uses a first multi-purpose pin of the display panel control circuit to transmit the detection signal to a second multi-purpose pin of the host processor, and the host The processor transmits the restart signal to a fourth multi-purpose pin of the display panel control circuit through a third multi-purpose pin of the processor.

In an embodiment, the control circuit further includes:

A control unit, coupled to the detection unit; and

A status register is coupled to the detection unit; wherein, when the soft error occurs, the detection signal is set to have a first level, and a flag of the status register is based on the detection A level of the signal is changed to a first bit value.

In one embodiment, the first level is a high level or a low level, and the first bit value is bit 0 or bit 1.

In an embodiment, the detection unit includes:

A plurality of first logic gates, wherein each of the first logic gates simultaneously receives a detection enable signal and a group of soft error signals sent by the control unit, and outputs a first logic signal; and

A second logic gate is used for receiving a plurality of first logic signals, and correspondingly outputting a second logic signal as the detection signal.

In a possible embodiment, the first logic gate may be an AND gate or a NOR gate, and the second logic gate is relative to the first logic gate. An OR gate or a NAND gate.

In one embodiment, the second level is a low level or a high level relative to the first level.

In a possible embodiment, the first logic gate is a set of AND gates or a set of NOR gates, and the second logic gate is relative to the first logic gate. It is a group of OR gates or a group of NAND gates.

In addition, the present invention further provides a display device which is integrated into an electronic device and has the aforementioned control circuit and main control unit.

In possible embodiments, the display device may be a cathode ray tube display device, a digital light processing display device, a liquid crystal display, a light emitting diode display device, an organic light emitting diode display device, a quantum dot light emitting diode Display device, Mirco-LED display device or Mini-LED display device.

In order to enable your reviewer to further understand the structure, features, purpose, and advantages of the present invention, the drawings and detailed descriptions of preferred specific embodiments are attached as follows.

The present invention mainly proposes a soft error detection and restart method of a display panel driving circuit, which is mainly applied to an electronic device with a display panel module, such as: smart phones, tablet computers, notebook computers, integrated computers , Smart watch, or door phone. 2 is a flowchart of an embodiment of the soft error detection and restart method of the display panel driving circuit of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the soft error detection and restart method of the display panel driving circuit mainly includes 3 steps. Step a: Use a detection unit inside a control circuit to detect at least one soft error; Step b: Send a detection signal to a main control unit when the detection unit occurs when the soft error occurs; and Step c: The main control unit transmits a restart signal to the control circuit to restart the control circuit.

FIG. 3 is a structural diagram of an embodiment of a display device of the present invention. The display device shown in FIG. 3 is usually integrated into any of the aforementioned electronic devices, and has a display panel control circuit 1, a source driving unit 3, a gate driving unit 4, a display panel 5, and a host processor. The device 2 performs the soft error detection and restart method of the display panel driving circuit shown in FIG. 2. Generally, the display panel control circuit 1 includes a control unit 11, a data register 12, and a command receiving unit 13. The data register 12 is used to temporarily store the video data sent by the host processor 2 And the command receiving unit 13 is used to receive a control command transmitted by the host processor 2, for example: a screen brightness (quality) adjustment command, a partial screen enlargement (reduction) command, etc. In particular, the present invention further provides a detection unit 14 in the display panel control circuit 1.

For electronic devices with display panel modules, electrostatic discharge (Electro Static Discharge, ESD) often causes some soft errors in the display panel control circuit 1, such as: SoT (Start of Transmission) error, SoT Sync error, EoT ( End of Transmission) Sync error, Escape Entry Command error, LP Transmission Sync error, False control error, ECC (Error Code Correction) error, and/or CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) error. The present invention is to add a group of detection units 14 mutually coupled with the control unit 11 inside the display panel control circuit 1, and are used to receive any soft error signal sent by the control unit 11. And, after receiving any of the soft error signals, the detection unit 14 will transmit a detection signal to the host processor 2 (that is, the main control unit described in step b), so that the host processor 2 Send a restart signal to the display panel control circuit 1 so as to restart the display panel control circuit 1.

Electronic engineers familiar with the design of display panel modules should know that the display panel control circuit 1 and the host processor 2 are usually equipped with multiple general purpose input/output pins (GPIO pins). Therefore, when step b is performed, the detection unit 14 can be made to use a general purpose output pin (GPO pin) of the display panel control circuit 1 to transmit the detection signal to the A general purpose input pin (GPI pin) of the host processor 2. Similarly, when performing step C, the host processor 2 can also use one of its multi-purpose output pins (GPO pin) to transmit the restart signal to a multi-purpose input pin of the display panel control circuit 1 ( GPI pin). In addition, electronic engineers familiar with the design of display panel modules should also know that the display panel control circuit 1 and the host processor 2 are usually equipped with the so-called TE (Tearing effect) or TE1 pin. In a possible embodiment, the TE or TE1 pin can also be used as the output pin of the detection signal and the restart signal.

On the other hand, the present invention also provides a status register 15 inside the display panel control circuit 1, which is coupled to the detection unit 14. According to the design of the present invention, when the soft error occurs, the detection unit 14 sets the detection signal to a first level, such as a high level or a low level, and the status register 12 A flag of is changed to a first bit value, such as bit 1 or bit 0, according to a level change of the detection signal.

Continue to refer to FIG. 3 and also refer to FIG. 4, which is a circuit structure diagram of the detection unit. As shown in FIG. 4, the detection unit 14 includes a plurality of first logic gates 141 and a second logic gate 142 in circuit composition. 4 shows that each of the first logic gates 141 is an AND gate, and each of the first logic gates 141 simultaneously receives a detection enable signal and the signal sent by the control unit 11 A soft error signal. In addition, FIG. 4 also shows that the second logic gate 142 is an OR gate for receiving a first logic signal sent by each of the first logic gates 141. It is easy to understand that when the detection enable signal is at a high level, as long as the control unit 11 outputs any soft error signal (also at a high level), the first logic gate 141 that receives the soft error signal Will output a high-level signal (that is, a high-level first logic signal) to the second logic gate 142, and each of the other first logic gates 141 will output a low-level signal (that is, , The low-level first logic signal) to the second logic gate 142. Since the second logic gate 142 is an OR logic gate, after receiving the high-level signal and the low-level signal, a high-level signal (that is, a high-level second logic signal) is correspondingly output. This high-level second logic signal is used as the detection signal and is transmitted to the host processor 2.

The foregoing description explains steps b and steps of the method of the present invention when the first logic gate 141 is an AND gate and the second logic gate 142 is an OR gate. c. However, in a possible embodiment, the first logic gate 141 may also be a NOR gate, and the second logic gate 142 may also be a NOR gate relative to the first logic gate 141. And logic gate (NAND gate). It is easy to understand that when the detection enable signal is at a low level, as long as the control unit 11 outputs any soft error signal (also at a low level), the first logic gate 141 that receives the soft error signal Will output a low level signal (that is, the first logic signal) to the second logic gate 142, and each of the other first logic gates 141 will output a high level signal (that is, the first logic signal) Signal) to the second logic gate 142. Since the second logic gate 142 is a non-and logic gate, after receiving the low-level signal and the high-level signal, a high-level signal (ie, the second logic signal) is correspondingly output. This high-level second logic signal is used as the detection signal and is transmitted to the host processor 2.

In this way, the above system has completely and clearly explained the soft error detection and restart method of the display panel control circuit of the present invention and the display device; and from the above, it can be seen that the present invention has the following advantages:

(1) The present invention improves the display panel control circuit 1, especially the addition of a detection unit 14 and a status register 15 in the display panel control circuit 1, so as to add a counter to the display panel control circuit 1 The detection function of soft errors caused by ESD. When the detection unit 14 detects any kind of soft error, it can cooperate with the host processor 2 to restart the display panel control circuit 1 and recover the normal operation of the display panel control circuit 1.

(2) The present invention further adds a parasitic element to the signal reader of the sensing signal readout unit, and uses the parasitic element to improve the protection capability of the sensing signal readout unit against electrostatic discharge.

It must be emphasized that the foregoing disclosures in this case are preferred embodiments, and any partial changes or modifications that are derived from the technical ideas of this case and are easily inferred by those who are familiar with the art will not deviate from the patent of this case. Right category.

In summary, regardless of the purpose, means and effects of this case, it is shown that it is very different from the conventional technology, and its first invention is suitable for practicality, and it does meet the patent requirements of the invention. Please check it out and grant the patent as soon as possible Society is for the best prayer.

<The present invention> Step a: Use a detection unit inside a control circuit to detect at least one soft error Step b: Send a detection signal to a master control unit when the detection unit occurs when the soft error occurs Step c: The main control unit transmits a restart signal to the control circuit to restart the control circuit 1: Display panel control circuit 2: host processor 3: Source drive unit 4: Gate drive unit 5: Display panel 11: Control unit 12: Data register 13: Command receiving unit 14: Detection unit 15: Status register 141: first logic gate 142: The second logic gate ＜Acquaintances＞ 1’: Display panel control circuit 2’: Host processor 3’: Source drive unit 4’: Gate drive unit 5’: Display panel

FIG. 1 is a structural diagram of a conventional display panel driving circuit of a mobile electronic device; FIG. 2 is a flowchart of an embodiment of the soft error detection and restarting method of the display panel driving circuit of the present invention; FIG. 3 is one of the present invention A structure diagram of an embodiment of a display device; and FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram of an embodiment of a detection unit of the display device of FIG. 3.

Step a: Use a detection unit inside a control circuit to detect at least one soft error

Step b: Send a detection signal to a master control unit when the detection unit occurs when the soft error occurs

Step c: The main control unit transmits a restart signal to the control circuit to restart the control circuit

Claims (9)

A soft error detection and restart method for a display panel control circuit, including the following steps: Detect at least one soft error using a detection unit inside a control circuit; The detection unit transmits a detection signal when the soft error occurs To a main control unit; and the main control unit transmits a restart signal to the control circuit to restart the control circuit. The soft error detection and restart method of the display panel control circuit as described in the first item of the scope of patent application, wherein the control circuit and the main control unit are respectively a display panel control circuit and a host processor, and are simultaneously arranged with a In an electronic device of the display panel. The soft error detection and restarting method of the display panel control circuit as described in the scope of patent application, wherein the detection unit uses a first multi-purpose pin of the display panel control circuit to transmit the detection signal to A second multi-purpose pin of the host processor, and a third multi-purpose pin of the host processor transmits the restart signal to a fourth multi-purpose pin of the display panel control circuit. For example, the soft error detection and restart method of the display panel control circuit described in the scope of the patent application, wherein the control circuit further includes: a control unit coupled to the detection unit; and a status register coupled to The detection unit; wherein, when the soft error occurs, the detection signal is set to have a first level, and a flag of the status register is changed according to a level change of the detection signal To a first bit value. As described in item 4 of the scope of patent application, the soft error detection and restart method of the display panel control circuit, wherein the first level is a high level or a low level, and the first bit value is bit 0 or Bit 1. The soft error detection and restarting method of the display panel control circuit described in item 5 of the scope of patent application, wherein the detection unit includes: a plurality of first logic gates, wherein each of the first logic gates simultaneously receives a detection Test the enable signal and a group of soft error signals sent by the control unit, and output a first logic signal; and a second logic gate for receiving a plurality of first logic signals and correspondingly output a second logic The signal is used as the detection signal. The soft error detection and restart method of the display panel control circuit described in item 6 of the scope of patent application, wherein the first logic gate is an AND gate or a NOR gate, And the second logic gate is an OR gate or a NAND gate with respect to the first logic gate. A display device is integrated in an electronic device and has a control circuit and a main control unit as described in any one of items 1-7 in the scope of patent application. The display device described in item 8 of the scope of application is composed of a cathode ray tube display device, a digital light processing display device, a liquid crystal display, a light emitting diode display device, an organic light emitting diode display device, and a quantum dot light emitting device. A display device selected by the group consisting of polar display device, Mirco-LED display device and Mini-LED display device.

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