Abstract: Particular embodiments described herein provide for an electronic device that includes a liquid crystal display, a backlight for the liquid crystal display, a timing controller (TCON), and a display engine located outside of the TCON, where the display engine asynchronously sends image data to the TCON and backlight control data to the backlight.

Abstract: Particular embodiments described herein provide for an electronic device that includes a display and is configured to enable a low power display refresh during a semi-active workload. The electronic device can include a display engine and a display panel and a frame is used by the display panel to generate an image on a display backplane. The display panel includes the display backplane, a plurality of row drivers, a plurality of column drivers, and a timing controller. The timing controller can receive a partial update to a frame being displayed as an image on the display backplane and update the image displayed on the display backplane by activating row drivers and a subset of the plurality of available column drivers, wherein the subset is based on the update.