Driving Waveform Design with Rising Gradient and Sawtooth Wave of Electrowetting Displays for Ultra-Low Power Consumption

• Published in: Micromachines (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 2; p. 145
• Main Authors: Li, Wei, Wang, Li, Zhang, Taiyuan, Lai, Shufa, Liu, Linwei, He, Wenyao, Zhou, Guofu, Yi, Zichuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI 28.01.2020; MDPI AG
• Subjects: aperture ratio; driving waveform; electrowetting display; power consumption; response speed; electrowetting display; aperture ratio; response speed; driving waveform; power consumption
• ISSN: 2072-666X; 2072-666X
• DOI: 10.3390/mi11020145

As a kind of paper-like display technology, power consumption is a very important index for electrowetting displays (EWDs). In this paper, the influence of driving waveforms on power consumption of the EWDs is analyzed, and a driving waveform with rising gradient and sawtooth wave is designed to reduce the power consumption. There are three stages in the proposed driving waveform. In the initial stage, the driving voltage is raised linearly from the threshold to the maximum value to reduce the invalid power consumption. At the same time, the oil breakup can be prohibited. And then, a section of sawtooth wave is added for suppressing oil backflow. Finally, there is a section of resetting wave to eliminate the influence of charge leakage. Experimental results show that the power consumption of the ultra-low power driving waveform is 1.85 mW, which is about 38.13% lower than that of the conventional used square wave (2.99 mW), when the aperture ratio is 65%.