1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for driving an electrophoretic display that displays images through position changes of electrophoretic particles.
2. Description of the Related Art
The electrophoretic display includes a thin film transistor array panel having pixel electrodes each connected to a thin film transistor, a common electrode panel including a common electrode, and positive or negatively charged electrophoretic particles that move between the pixel electrodes and the common electrode.
A common reference voltage is applied to the common electrode and data voltages that are larger or smaller than the common voltage are applied to the pixel electrodes according to gray information. Differences between the common voltage and the data voltages are applied to the electrophoretic particles as image display voltages of positive or negative polarity causing the electrophoretic particles to move to the pixel electrodes or the common electrode. The distance that the electrophoretic particles move is determined by the application time of the image display voltages which is based on the gray information for each pixel resulting in disposition of the electrophoretic particles at various positions between the pixel electrodes and the common electrode.
However, if the image display voltages are repeatedly applied to the electrophoretic particles, arbitrary charges are stimulated in each pixel such that afterimages may be generated. Accordingly, each pixel must be refreshed through the application of a compensation voltage to remove the stimulated charges for the prevention of the afterimage. After the desired image is displayed for a predetermined time the compensation voltage of the same value but of opposite polarity to the image display voltage is applied for the predetermined time to display a compensation image which is the reverse of the desired image.
The display of the compensation image between displays of the desired images degrades the performance of the electrophoretic display delays the image display because of the finite speed of the electrophoretic particles.