Design And Implementation of a Novel Sustain Driver for Plasma Display Panel

Over the years, plasma display panel (PDP) manufacturers have impressed the flat panel display industry with yet another new product essentially having the merits of a larger screen size. Since larger size implies higher power ratings, voltage/current ratings of the power devices used have become a rising concern. Another important concern is the brightness of PDP, one way of increasing which is by operating the PDP at higher frequencies. In order to address the above issues, a transformer coupled sustain-driver for AC-PDP is proposed During the transition time, the two windings of the transformer greatly boost up the displacement current flowing through the panel capacitance and hence enable a fast inversion of the voltage polarity with practical values of resonant inductance. In the proposed topology, the resonant inductance can be increased by a factor of $(n+1)^2$ as compared to prior approaches. Increased inductance results in lower current stresses. Moreover, high frequency operation is possible by using higher value of n (turn ratio of the transformer). The operational principle and design procedure of the proposed circuit are presented with theoretical analysis. The validity of the proposed sustain driver is established through simulation and experimental results using a 42-in PDP