Abstract: An AC color plasma display system comprises an AC plasma display panel having transversely oriented first and second insulated electrode arrays defining a matrix of display pixels. Linear ribs are in substantially parallel alignment with one of the linear electrode arrays to form gas channels, respectively, aligned electrodes in one of the arrays. A plurality of phosphor layers are on the ribs, and a UV rich gas discharge medium is sealed in the channels. An interface circuit for receiving video signals from one of a selected plurality of video sources produces, in digital form, pixel data, pixel clock, and horizontal and vertical synchronizing signals from a gray scale drive system is connected between said interface circuit and AC plasma display panel. The gray scale drive system includes blue, green and red color channels and pixel-by-pixel gray scale control of each color channel.

Abstract: A novel drive system is described for AC plasma (ACP) gas discharge flat bistable matrix panels on which real-time video and computer graphics, both with pixel by pixel gray scale are displayed. The drive scheme increases scan speed, reduces complexity and minimizes circuitry required to operate the video and computer graphics gray scale images on the ACP display through: a) unique application of standard high density memory IC architecture, and b) unique panel drive waveform technique. Flicker is avoided with an interlaced framerate of 46 Hz and non-sequential pixel row scanning. The unique panel drive scheme allows high speed operation to avoid flicker in the ACP panel for real time gray scale video and graphic images. Because of the high speed addressing requirements, the panel waveform techniques apply all of the drive voltages to the ACP panel from the row (Y) axis and only selective cancellation voltage from the column (X) axis.