Display Devs
Display Devs
Section – II:
CRT monitor
Types of CRT display devices
• DVST (Direct View Storage Tube)
• Calligraphic or Random Scan display system
• Refresh and raster scan display system
• No refreshing necessary
DVST - Direct View Storage Tube (contd.)
Focusing Electron
Cathode Anode Beam Path
Heating
Filament Control Accelerating
Grid Anode
Basic design of a
Magnetic deflection CRT
Magnetic
Focusing Deflection Coils
Base System
Electron
Gun Electron
Connector Beam
Pins Phosphor
Coated Screen
Electrostatic deflection of the
electron beam in a CRT Phosphor
Vertical Coated Screen
Deflection
Base Focusing Plates
System
Horizontal
Connector Electron Deflection
Pins Gun Plates
Electron
Beam
DVST - Direct View Storage Tube (contd.)
Drawbacks
• Modifying any part of the image requires
redrawing the entire modified image
Vector/ Display
CRT character controller
generator
Conceptual block diagram of
calligraphic refresh display - II
Vector/ Picture
CRT character processor
generator
Calligraphic or Random Scan display system (contd.)
System Bus
I/O Devices
Architecture of a raster system with
a fixed portion of the system memory
reserved for the frame buffer
System Bus
A B
A (a) Rasterized (b)
approximation
to line AB
Refresh Rate, Video basics
and Scan Conversion
• Raster is stored as a matrix of pixels
representing the entire screen area
Display
CPU Processor Monitor
System Bus
X y
Register Register
Frame Buffer
Architecture of a raster display
Vertical
retrace
Refresh Rate, Video basics and Scan Conversion (contd.)
NTSC (American Standard Video) has 525
horizontal lines with a frame rate of 30 fps.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Refresh Rate, Video basics and Scan Conversion (contd.)
• N = 24 – 16 million colors
Electron
gun
Register
1 DAC
Frame
buffer CRT
raster
An N-bit plane gray level frame buffer
N
Register
0 1 0
Frame 2N
buffer 2N DAC
levels
Electron CRT
gun Raster
Simple color frame buffer
Color
Registers guns
3 0 DAC Blue
1 DAC Green
0 DAC Red
Frame buffer
CRT
raster
N-bit plane gray level Frame buffer (Contd.)
• In case of one-bit for each color frame
buffer, we get 8 colors as:
COLOR RED GREEN BLUE
BLACK 0 0 0
BLUE 0 0 1
GREEN 0 1 0
CYAN 0 1 1
RED 1 0 0
MAGENTA 1 0 1
YELLOW 1 1 0
WHITE 1 1 1
Operation of a delta-delta, shadow-mask CRT.
Three electron guns, aligned with the triangular
color-dot patterns on the screen, are directed
to each dot triangle by a shadow mask.
Electron Guns
B Magnified
G Phosphor-Dot
Triangle
Selection of
Shadow Mask
Screen
Color CRT electron gun and
shadow mask arrangement
R G B R G B R G B
G B R G B R G B R G
R G B R G B R G B
G B R G B R G B R G
R G B R G B R G B
Shadow mask arrangements
Computer Dot Pitch Pixels per
Resolution Ratio Pixels
Standard (mm) inch
8
0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1
8-bit
8 Blue - 75 DAC
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 8-bit
Green - 172 DAC
8
8-bit
0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0
DAC
Red - 10
Frame Red
buffer Green
CRT
raster
Color Blue
guns
N-bit plane gray level Frame buffer (Contd.)
Use of
• LUT (Look-up-table)
• N-bit plane gray level/color frame buffer
with W-bit wide LUT
• Typically W > N
• The N-bit register content acts as an index
into the lookup table
• Thus out of 2W possible intensities, that are
available, only 2N different intensities are
usable at any time
• The programmer must choose 2N different
intensities, based on his requirement, and load
the LUT (addressable in memory) before use
An N-bit-plane gray level frame buffer
with a W-bit-wide lookup table.
W
N=3 Lookup
N Table
0 1 0
1 0 1 1
2W
DAC
2N
entries
Frame W=4
buffer
CRT
raster
Electron
2w intensity levels, Gun
2N at a time (W>N)
A 24-bit-plane
color frame
buffer, with
10-bit-wide
LUT N W=10
N
W=10
N
Frame Blue
W=10
buffer Color
look-up
Green table
2N
Entries
Red (CONTD.)
A 24-bit-plane color W=10
frame buffer, with
10-bit-wide lookup Color
tables W=10 look-up
table
W=10
Blue
W-bit DAC Blue
Green
Red
W-bit DAC Green
Red
W-bit DAC Red CRT
Raster
Color guns
LCD and FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS
• LCD is made up of 6 layers – vertical polarizer
plane; layer of thin grid wires; layer of LCDs;
layer of horizontal grid wires; horizontal
polarizer; and finally a reflector.
• LCD material is made up of long crystalline
molecules; When the crystals are in an electric
field, they all line up in the same direction.
• Active matrix panels have a transistor at each
grid point (X, Y). Crystals are dyed up to provide
color. Transistors act as memory, and also cause
the crystals to change their state quickly.
• LCD displays are low cost, low weight, small
size and low power consumption
LCD and FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS
• The display contains two polarizers, aligned
900 to each other.
• With the display in its OFF (or twisted) state,
light entering the display is plane polarized by
the first polarizer.
• This polarized light passes through the liquid
crystal sandwich and then through the second
polarizer and is reflected back to the display.
• Turning the pixel ON (by applying and electric
field) causes the crystal to untwist.
• Light now passing through the liquid crystal
sandwich is now absorbed by the second
polarizer. The pixel now appears dark.
LCD and FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS
• Displays are of two types – plasma/gas
discharge or Electroluminescent.
• All flat panel displays are raster refresh
displays.
• A flat CRT is obtained by initially projecting
the beam parallel to the screen and then
reflecting it through 900.
• Reflection of the electron beam reduces the
depth of the CRT bottle and hence the display.
• Plasma displays like LCDs are also called active
matrix displays.
• The required voltage or current to control the
pixel illumination is supplied using a thin-film
transistor or diode.
Some questions and take-home tasks - I
• What are the drawbacks of DVST displays ?
Lectures on