A Data-line Sharing Method for Lower Cost and Lower Power in TFT-LCDs

This paper presents a new data line sharing technique for TFT-LCD panels. This technique reduces the number of data driver IC's to half by having two adjacent pixels share the same data line. This in turn doubles the number of gate lines, which are integrated directly on the glass substrate of amorphous silicon for further cost reduction and more compactness. The proposed technique with new pixel array structure was applied to 15.4 inch WXGA TFT-LCD panels and has proven that the number of driver IC's were halved with nearly 41% circuit cost reduction and 5.3% reduction in power consumption without degrading the image quality.