Title of Invention: Direct View LED Display System

Technical Field

[1] The invention in general relates to LED display systems. Particularly, the invention relates to the specific arrangement of individual discrete Red, Green and Blue light elements of flip chip micro/mini LEDs / Chip on Board LEDs and any other type of LEDs and associated hardware, firmware, software, Pixel software slicing and pixel mapping techniques in a LED display system or inorganic LED TV with optimal utilization of physical resources to display high resolution images and video content while sustaining the quality and display characteristics comparable to that of display system with same resolution of a fully populated Red, Green and Blue light elements (LEDs) or Pixels and having each such LED display devices be compatible with Internet protocol IPv4/IPv6 addressing so that each of the display devices/systems can be monitored / accessed / controlled in intra-network and inter-network.

Background Art

[2] Generally, a direct view LED display consists of a RGB-LED pixels arranged in a rectangular array, repeated multiple times to create a display of the desired resolution, size and pixel count. An LED pixel consists at a minimum one each of Red, Green and Blue LEDs arranged in a fixed pattern and variants may have multiple LEDs of Red, Green and Blue LEDs per pixel. A controller along with a set of sending and receiving card(s) is used to control the pixel array and maps the pixel data in the content on to the corresponding physical pixel on the display. Besides pixel mapping along with PWM LED drivers the controller also regulates intensity, color gamma, scaling of content among other functions.

[3] Significant amount of work was carried out by the inventors in respect of T rue Color LED displays for stored content display of still images, animations, video and live video for applications like LED digital posters, network of LED display systems for advertising, LED display systems for addressing large gatherings, LED display systems for centralized control and monitoring, LED TV, Digital Posters, 3D display systems and 3D pepper ghost holographic display systems as evident from the patents and co-pending patent applications, for example, IN274697, IN280159, 707/CH E/2010, 2925/CH E/2011, 4192/CH E/2011 , 5639/CHE/2013 and

201631030906.

[4] With the advent of micro-led technology into the market, the demand for fine-pitch large format display systems has been increasing. Manufacturers, with the micro- led technology, are now able to deliver contiguous and high contrast video display systems to the necessities of the market like about 70”, 80”, 90”, 100”, 110”, 120”, 130”, 140”, 150” ~ 300” and above sizes supporting HD, UHD, UWHD, WQHD, UWQHD, 2K, 4K, 8K and other standard and non-standard display formats, which otherwise not possible with the available contemporary technologies like picture- tube, LCD, plasma and others.

[5] However, there is a need for developing new LED displays in depicting the near natural colors while displaying the content and also to have smaller foot-print, thinner profile and cost effective display system while supporting higher resolutions like from 1280x 720, 2K (1920x1080 Pixels), 4K (3840x2160 Pixels), 8K (7680x4320 Pixels) and 4K DCI cinema resolution (4096x2160 Pixels) and other higher but of non-standard resolutions and display format requirements. Further, the current LED displays are not enabled for adoption to the different applications like bezel free video walls, information display systems, IPV4/IPV6 enabled digital LED display systems, Digital Black Boards for education, life size Holographic Displays for telepresence applications, life size gaming markets including home entertainment market while competing with TVs and projector systems.

Summary of Invention

[6] Higher resolution Direct View LED displays along with the need to reduce the display size necessitates the reduction of pixel pitch to meet these requirements. To overcome the physical limitations of the LED size and hence the pixel size, the invention provides a Direct View LED Display system comprising of intelligent pixel display (iPixel) along with Scan ++ software techniques to create a multiplying effect of virtually increasing the pixel count and hence the reduction in pixel pitch without losing data/content of the picture being displayed or picture quality of the display. [7] The invention as disclosed herein provides a new LED display system / Direct View LED system/TV with specific arrangement of individual discrete Red, Green and Blue light elements of flip chip micro/mini LEDs / Chip on Board LEDs and any other type of LEDs and associated hardware, firmware, software and pixel mapping techniques in a LED display system / DirectView LED system/TV with less number of LEDs and associated active and passive components (reduction of the hardware resources to the extent 60% or more) and augmented by programmable virtualization techniques using either Common Cathode or Common Anode LED drivers. The display characteristics of the Direct View LED display system as disclosed herein comprises improved contrast, thinner profile, greater flexibility with the same physical footprint to build out larger varied shaped LED displays by aggregating several of the modules, effect is one of a seamless image surface.

[8] In Intelligent Pixel display system as disclosed herein, the display will be arranged as individual R, G, B LEDs in the form of rows and columns wherein each LED acts one pixel and perception pixels will be formed by identifying the suitable neighboring pixel data, processing the pixel data for each of the colors and applying the neighboring pixel data with appropriate ratio to the current pixel, without losing any data of the content to be displayed by 18bit processing per colour using one or more software techniques.

[9] The Direct View LED Display system as disclosed herein provides a reliable and energy efficient LED display system / DirectView LED TV for indoor and outdoor applications. The Direct View LED Display system as disclosed herein also designed to improve reliability, manufacturability and reduce production time utilizing innovative microelectronics manufacturing processes including roll-to-roll transfer techniques, gang transfer, mass transfer technique and chip shooter techniques in place of surface mount techniques and materials to contain costs and sustain or increase production yields.

Brief Description of Drawings

[10] [Fig. 1] shows the intended add-on device pattern with respect to the video processor.

[11] [Fig. 2] illustrates one of the pixel structure. [12] [Fig. 3] depicts the flow diagram of the data conversion method.

[13] [Fig. 4] illustrates the preparation method of Scan++ data frame.

[14] [Fig. 5] illustrates the preparation method of Scan++ data frame.

[15] [Fig. 6] illustrates the preparation method of Scan++ data frame.

[16] [Fig. 7] illustrates the output scan of the horizontal scan method.

[17] [Fig. 8] illustrates the output scan of the vertical scan method.

[18] [Fig. 9] illustrates the output scan of the horizontal scan and vertical scan.

[19] [Fig. 10] illustrates the pictorial representation of scanning for 9 pixels.

[20] [Fig. 11] illustrates the special arrangement of Red Green Blue LEDs.

Detailed Description

[21] In the Direct View LED Display System as disclosed herein, the arrangement of the light emitting resources i.e. Red, Green and Blue LEDs are die mounted directly on a substrate along with associated passive and active electronics in a specific methodology to realize the pixels of the desired resolution.

[22] Dynamic computation of pixel color, intensity values and populating the values to the top bottom, left & right pixels with certain iPixel and Scan++ computational techniques to reduce the hardware resources to the extent of more than 60% by implementing the same function through specific software solutions like soft slicing and intelligent pixel techniques using programmable virtualization techniques using either Common Cathode or Common Anode LED drivers. Also special techniques are used for the corner pixels and boundary pixels, while having the dynamic computation of pixel color and intensity values.

[23] Inserting the add-on device or conversion Engine for online conversion & rendering of real pixel data to iPixel data at final display system video processor or before the first sub-system of LED display, specific signal sending unit or with HDMI input, graphic processing engine to HDMI out put conversion, which converts real to iPixel data with online rendering & up down scaling to have the Scan++ / soft slicing & intelligent pixel data generation technique incorporated to have dynamic signal-in and signal-out or data in and data out. [24] One of the proposed pixel structure is illustrated in Figure 1. Utilizing less number of LEDs and associated active and passive components (reduction to the extent of more than 60%) comparing to the utilization of similar resources for a specific resolution LED display system, thus arriving to an improved LED display system with display characteristics thinner profile, better contrast, greater flexibility with the same physical footprint to build out larger varied shaped LED displays by aggregating several of the modules, effect is one of a seamless image surface.

[25] The Scan ++, various data sharing / conversion methods for best picture quality with this arrangements of LEDs is explained below:

[26] Data Conversion Method

1. Receive one Frame (at a time)

2. conversion flow for each row in Original frame buffer { take one row buffer (at a time) for each column in the row buffer { take color to be chosen from the scanning & output pattern for current row and column take column color data for the & with reference to the given row & column (Left Top is selected row & column in below diagram) take all the associated / neighbor-hood cell’s color data of locations to the given/selected row & column

Filter to the desired scanning color i.e. red or green or blue as per the scanning output pattern sequence Calculate average of the from associated colors of above collected as per scanning method.

(or) Extract the height value among the collected values for all the methods.

Set the above calculated color value in the corresponding row & column of Intelligent Frame Buffer matching scanning color pattern.

}

}

3. Send the Intelligent Frame Buffer data to Transmitter.

[27] Scan ++ data Preparation Methods: The Scan++ data frames preparation methods are illustrated in Figures 4 to 6.

[28] Preparation of the R, G, B pixel values by considering corresponding neighbouring pixel R, G, B values and applying suitable averaging methods (one of the above) and sending the calculated frame to the display system is one method. Otherwise, preparing the three different frames and dumping those three frames with high refresh rate with the help of two more additional processing bits is the other method to show the content with iPixel / soft-slicing technology.

[29] Other than the above data conversion methods for converting original pixel to intelligent pixel the following other methods are also considered as part of this invention.

[30] Example 1 - Method (a): Horizontal Scan

[31] Table 1:

Conversion Pixel data Sharing

[32] Table 2: Data Sharing

Pattern Inclusion Sharing %

Left T op 200 33%

Horizontal * °P Middle 200 33%

Scan Method _{Right Top} 200 33%

600 100%

Output Pattern is depicted in Figure 7

[33] Grabbing the 3 Data values for corresponding output color from input buffer should be with in 3x3 pixel matrix only in horizontal direction.

[34] Example 2 - Method (b): Vertical Scan

[35] Table 3:

Conversion Pixel data Sharing

[36] Table 5:

Data Sharing

Pattern Inclusion Sharing %

Output Pattern is depicted in Figure 8 Left Top 200 33%

[37] Grabbing the Left 3 Data

Vertical Middle 200 33% values for Scan

Method Left corresponding Bottom 200 33% output color from input buffer

600 100% should be with in 3x3 pixel matrix only in vertical direction.

[38] Example 3 - Method (c): Horizontal Scan and Vertical Scan [39] Table 4:

Conversion Pixel data Sharing

[40] Table 5:

Data Sharing

Pattern Inclusion Sharing %

Specific pixel-color 200 33%

Horizontal & Neighbour

Vertical ^{Plxe 1} 100 17%

Scan Neighbour

^Method Pixel2 100 17%

Neighbour

Pixel3 100 17%

Neighbour

Pixel4 100 17%

600 100%

[41] The above sharing process is same for each color data of specific pixel, considering the corresponding neighbourhood pixel colors.

[42] Output pattern as depicted in Figure 9

[43] Representation of above mentioned scanning for 9 pixels is as depicted in Figure 10

[44] Grabbing the 3 Data values for corresponding output color from input buffer should be with in 3x3 pixel matrix only in Horizontal and vertical directions. [45] The above described data conversion methods take in to consideration, the below Image processing precautions:

[46] Perimeter line excess & edge correction: Implementation of this algorithm at receiving card may result in incorrect data formation at the edges. To nullify this excess perimeter line problem, the application has to process and send 2 rows and 2 columns extra for edge correction.

[47] Sync issues: All the receiving cards are to be in sync to start and stop the dynamic applying of intelligent pixel processing algorithms to avoid any kind of non synchronization issues.

[48] Net bandwidth usage: Sending the additional rows and additional columns indicate that bandwidth occupied by the processed data is more, but to the reality, as the number of pixel data being carried is having the reduction to the extent of 60% and thus net bandwidth is less comparing to full resolution video data / image data.

[49] Distributed processing: As the algorithm works for each of the cabinet / module, the processing power of each of the control cards is optimally utilized in such a way that the total display frame data can dynamically be processed and displayed on the intelligent pixel display system, without any processing delays.

[50] In one embodiment the Direct View LED Display system as disclosed herein provides Display resource optimization technique with the invention of Scan++ / iPixel and soft slicing technology implemented with electronics hardware, FPGA logic, embedded software and data processing application software modules, without compromising on the quality of visual experience of the viewer for standard resolution LED display screen / Direct View LED TV.

[51] Specialized arrangement of the LEDs and its associated other active and passive hardware to formulate the pixels of the target LED display system / Direct View LED system/TV rather than conventional arrangement of SMD 3 RGB LEDs per pixel.

[52] Utilization of the less bandwidth, improved contrast, less energy (power consumption) and less data volumes comparing to the same resolution conventional LED display system / DirectView LED TVand thus less weight of the display system.

[53] Achieving more than 60% reduction of the active and passive hardware resources including the LEDs than the actual resources needed for specific resolution screen with soft slicing and iPixel technologies to design and develop all standard resolution screens like VGA, HD, UHD, VHD, 2K, 4K, 4K Cinema and 8K resolutions and other non-stand resolution display systems.

[54] Achieving less density of components (active and passive) associated with the LEDs corresponding to the reduction of LEDs comparing to that of LED display system supporting the same resolution with conventional placement of LEDs and associated components.

[55] The number of LEDs to be considered for the formation of the intelligent pixel display system are to be in terms of multiples of 3 and the module / cabinet size in terms of LEDs should be multiples of three both in horizontal and vertical directions.

[56] Formation of mini/micro/CoB/SMD individual LED chips in terms of special arrangement of Red Green Blue LEDs so that above explained intelligent pixel displays can be manufactured with muti-LED blocks (for example 3x3 LEDs as explained in below Figure-19) using common anode or common cathode technology.

[57] Typical flow for conversion of frame data is as mentioned in “Data Conversion

Method”.