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Invited

Micro Pulse Width Modulation for Grayscales in Display Devices

Temkar N Ruckmongathan

Raman Research Institute, C V Raman Avenue, Bengaluru, 560080 India

Keywords: addressing, grayscales, digital micro-mirror devices, liquid crystal displays

ABSTRACT
Introduction of group weights by factoring bit weights of
grayscale leads to micro pulse width modulation (MPWM),
a method to achieve drastic reduction in number of time
intervals to display grayscales as compared to pulse width
modulation and low power in fast responding displays.
1. INTRODUCTION
Pulse width modulation (PWM) is a simple method to
control a system and PWM is extensively used in many
appliances. Plasma display panel (PDP), digital micro
mirror device (DMD), light emitting diode (LED) etc. are
some display devices that employ PWM to control
grayscales i.e., intensity of pixels. Duration of application
of a voltage (or current) during a select time is varied to
display grayscales in display devices. Hence, the ratio of
durations W and T determines the grayscale of a pixel
(Fig.1 a). Pixels in fast responding displays like DMD Fig.1. a) Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), and
exhibit instantaneous response to the excitation. Hence, (b) Discrete version of PWM for 3-bits.
intensity of light reflected from pixels follows the pulse 2. PRINCIPLE of MPWM
shape of PWM. Reflected light from pixels is perceived as Let us consider eight bits of grayscale as shown here.
grayscale when duration of select time is small. Whereas, (2)
p x, y 2 7 b7  2 6 b6  2 5 b5  2 4 b4  2 3 b3  2 2 b2  21 b1  2 0 b0
light passing through pixel in slow device like LCD
Bit weights in (2) can be factored by forming two groups
depends on the root mean squared (RMS) value of pulse
of bits such that each group has a unique common factor
width modulated waveform across pixel.
in addition to bit weights as shown in (3). The common
Grayscale of a pixel is represented as a binary number group factors 2 4 and 2 0 in (3) are referred to as group
as shown in (1); wherein 2 i is a bit weight that is assigned weights.
to a bit bi as shown in (1) and value of bi be either 0 or 1. px , y 24 ˜ (23 b7  22 b6  21 b5  20 b4 )  20 ˜ (23 b3  22 b2  21 b1  20 b0 ) (3)
g 1 Bit weights of groups are used to control the duration of a
p x, y ¦ bi ˜ 2i (1) pulse as in PWM and the group weights are used to
i 0
control an additional parameter like, amplitude of voltage
Bit weights are used to control either amplitude of pulses
or intensity of light etc. in MPWM to display grayscales.
as in successive approximation method or to control
Equation (1) can also be rewritten to have 2 or 3 bits in
duration (width) of pulses as in PWM. Number of discrete
each group as shown in the following equation.
time intervals (i.e., maximum number of unit width pulses) (4)
px , y 25 (22 b6  21b5  20 b4 )  22 ˜ (22 b2  21b1  20 b0 )  20 (21b1  20 b1 )
that are necessary to display 2 g grayscales is (2 g  1) in
By modulating the amplitude pulses based on group
discrete implementation of PWM. Number of time intervals
weights the number of time intervals to display 255
that are necessary to display grayscale increases
grayscales is reduced to about 12% of 255 time
exponentially with the number of bits of grayscale (g) as
intervals that are necessary to 255 grayscales with PWM.
shown in Table 1. Bit weights are factored to reduce the
Number of bits in each group need not be equal. Two
number of time intervals in the next section.
groups of most significant bits (MSBs) in (3) have three
bits and the group of least significant bits (LSBs) has two
Table 1. Number of time intervals (nT ) in PWM.
bits. Group weights are 32, 4, and 1 for the group of
No. of bits 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10
MSBs to group of LSBs and 256 grayscales can be
(nT ) 3 7 15 31 63 127 255 1023 displayed with 17 time intervals by modulating the

ISSN-L 1883-2490/20/1450 © 2013 ITE and SID IDW ’13 1450

 amplitude of pulses based on group weight. The number non-emissive displays like DMD can be reduced by
of time intervals (nT ) reduces to 12 when grayscale bits illuminating the display device with a set of light sources
are split into four groups with 2 bits in each group. Group that are switched ‘on’ or ‘off’ within a short duration.
weights are 64,16, 4, and 1 for the group of MSBs to State of the art light emitting diode (LED) is an example
groups of LSBs as shown in (5). of such a source. A light source illuminating a cluster is
switched off when all pixels in that cluster are off. Size of
2 6 (21 b7  2 0 b6 )  2 4 (21 b5  2 0 b4 )  2 2 (21 b3  2 0 b2 )  (21 b1  2 0 b0 ) (5)
such clusters with all pixels in same state is large in first
MPWM was proposed to save power of light source in (F1) and last (F3) frames when pixels are switched as
projection displays based on DMD [1] but it could also be per Table 3 (PWM of 2-bits) and Table 4 (PWM of 4-bits).
applied to slow responding devices like LCD so that simple
drivers can be used to drive the display even when the Table 3. State of a pixel in frames the F1 to F3.
number of grayscales is high. Grayscale Frame Frame Frame
3. Micro PWM for FAST RESPONDING DISPLAYS F1 F2 F3
Pixels in digital micro-mirror device (DMD) have ‘00’ off off off
response times of around 10μs. DMD is an ideal device to ‘01’ on off off
implement MPWM because it is a bi-stable device. ‘10’ on on off
Intensity of light sources that illuminate DMD is an ‘11’ on on on
additional parameter that corresponds to group weights of
MPWM. The maximum intensity of pixel is the same as the
maximum intensity of light source in PWM because PWM
uses just one parameter (pulse width) to display
grayscales; whereas, intensity of light source is modulated
depending on group weight in MPWM. Hence, the
maximum intensity of pixel ( I p ) is lower than the
maximum intensity of light source ( I s ) in MPWM. Hence,
the ratio ( I p I s ) depends on grouping of bits as shown in
Original Image Frame F1
Table 2. Micro PWM is compared with PWM in Fig.2.
Table 2 Effect of Grouping of bits in MPWM
Grouping of bits
(4, 4) (3,3,2) (2,2,2,2)
MSB to LSB
Group weights 16:1 32:4:1 64:16:1
Number of time
intervals 30 17 12
Reduction in time
intervals (%) 88 93 95
( I p I s ) ˜100 % ~53 ~47 ~33
Frame F2 Frame F3
Fig. 3. Three frames of Micro PWM with large sized
clusters of ON pixels in F1 and OFF pixels in F3.
For example, the number of pixels driven to ‘on’ state
is high in frame F1 of Fig. 3. The number of pixels in ‘on’
state decreases as we proceed from F1 to F3. Similarly,
the number of pixels in ‘off’ state increases from F1 to F3
when pixels are driven based on Table 3. We can see
that most pixels are ‘off’ in the frame F3 and it is a waste
Fig. 2. Comparison of PWM and Micro-PWM of power to illuminate ‘off’ pixels in the frame. Power
Reduction in number of time intervals to display consumption of light sources that illuminate the display
grayscales is useful to increase the frame frequency of device can be reduced by selectively switching off light
images or to increase the number of pixels (matrix size) of sources that illuminate clusters if all pixels in those
the display. clusters are in off state during a frame. For example, all
pixels are in off state in sixteen out of 64 clusters in
4. LOW POWER with Micro PWM (MPWM) frame F3 of the image as shown in Fig.4. Hence, 25% of
Micro pulse width modulation is useful to reduce power can be saved by selective illumination of clusters
power consumption of light sources that illuminates the during F3. It is about 6.25% reduction of total power
display [1] Power consumption of fast responding because 25% power is consumed during F1 to F3.

1451 IDW ’13

 Frame F3 of 2-MSB Selective illumination of F3 F11 and selective illumination for F11
Fig. 4. Sixty-four Clusters of size 4096 pixels of frame
F3. Each cluster is illuminated with independent light
source that is switched ‘off’ if all pixels in that cluster
are driven to ‘off’ state during a frame.

Image quality is not compromised because clusters are

illuminated with light even when a pixel is ‘on’ among 4096
pixels in a cluster. Power consumption can be reduced
further by switching ‘off’ light sources that illuminate
clusters with a few in ‘on’ state. However, this approach F12 and selective illumination for F12
will result in loss of image quality. A better approach is to
a) decrease the size of the cluster, and b) increase the
number of bits in a group in most significant bits of MPWM.
Table 4 shows the increase in number of clusters with all
pixels in ‘off’ state with decrease in size of the clusters.

Table 4. Number of cluster with all pixels “OFF”

Cluster size
Frame↓ 64 x 64 32 x 32 16 x 16 8x8
F1 0 1 9 62 F13 and selective illumination for F13
F2 0 5 42 278
F3 1 8 55 358
F4 1 9 71 525
F5 1 24 254 1751
F6 15 130 745 3459
F7 36 197 904 3848
Total 10.54 18.26 25.39 31.38

Table 5 shows the state of a pixel to display grayscales

during15 frames for PWM of 4 bits. A subset of Table 5; i.e., F14 and selective illumination for F14
grayscales 0 to 7 and frames 1 to 7 shown as columns in
the table gives the state of a pixel for PWM of 3 bits.

Table 5. state of a pixel during the frames F1 to F15.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f
0 x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
1 1 x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
2 1 1 x x x x x x x x x x x x x
3 1 1 1 x x x x x x x x x x x x
4 1 1 1 1 x x x x x x x x x x x
5 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x x x x x x x
6 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x x x x x x
7 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x x x x x F15 and selective illumination for F15
8 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x x x x
9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x x x Fig. 5. Selected frames of micro pulse width
a 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x x modulation when 4 MSBs of grayscale are used for
b 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x x PWM. Selective illumination of clusters of size 4096
c 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x x (64x64) pixels in frames F11 to F15 are shown on
d 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 x x
e 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 x
right hand side.
f 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

IDW ’13 1452

 Table 6. Reduction in power vs. cluster size
Cluster
size
(No. of
pixels)
↓ formed as compared to 30 time intervals when the bits
32x32
26.25% 26.81% 26.62% 21.63%
(1024)
16x16 33.58% 33.03% 34.25% 28.64%
(256)
Number of bits in the group of MSBs can be higher than
that of other groups to achieve smaller number of time
intervals to display grayscale. For example, 4 MSBs can
be grouped together and rest of the bits can either be
grouped as 2 bits in a group (21 time intervals to display
256 shades) or left as such without grouping (19 time
intervals to display 256 grayscales). Further increase in
number of bits in MSB group is not an attractive option
because of the number of time intervals to display
grayscales increases rapidly. Similarly, a cluster size that
is less than 256 pixels is also not an attractive option
because the number of independent light sources that
illuminate the clusters increases rapidly as we reduce the
size of the clusters. Fig. 5 shows five frames (F11 to F15)
of MPWM wherein all pixels are “off’ in 3, 16, 29, 36, and
52 clusters in these frames. Power consumed to illuminate
15 frames of 4-MSBs is 93.25% if we assume power
consumption varies linearly with respect to intensity of light
source. About 14% reduction in power is achieved during
the frames F11 to F15 in a cycle. Further saving in power
by selective illumination of LSBs is negligible and is not
worth the trouble. A higher reduction in power can be
achieved by reducing the size of clusters. For example,
the reduction in power is 21.64% when the cluster size is
1024 pixels as compared to 28.79% when the cluster size
is reduced to 256 pixels. Table 6 compares the reduction
power consumption of light sources when cluster size is
256 pixels and 1024 pixels while displaying some images.
Selective illumination of clusters is useful to achieve low
power in non-emissive fast responding devices like DMD,
ferroelectric LCD or blue phase LCD.
5. INTENSITY CONTROL OF LIGHT SOURCES
Light emitting diodes are the state of the art light sources
and intensity of LED is controlled with PWM. Pulse width
modulation of light source and switching pixels based on
MPWM may interfere with each other leading to some
visual artifacts and poor image quality. Hence, the PWM of
LEDs and MPWM of Pixels have to synchronize to avoid
image distortions due to asynchronous operation. PWM of
light source for intensity control is eliminated if a number of
LEDs are used to achieve intensity modulation of light that
is incident of the display device. For example, when the
group weights are 16:1; it is better to have 16 LEDs and
switch all of them ‘on’ for group weight 16 and switch ‘off’
1453 IDW ’13
15 of them for a group weight of 1. The number of time
intervals can be reduced by having less number of bits in
groups of LSBs. For example, the number of time
intervals to display 256 grayscales is 21 when 4 bits of
MSBs and two groups of LSBs with 2 bits each are
are grouped with 4-bits in each group.
6. CONCLUSION
Micro pulse width modulation is a simple technique that
can be used to overcome the limitation of conventional
pulse width modulation. Introduction of an additional
parameter like amplitude of pulses or intensity of light
source leads to a drastic reduction in number of time
intervals to display gray scales as compared to the
conventional pulse width modulation. Advantages of
micro pulse width modulation are
x Display grayscales using bi-stable display
devices like DMD and ferroelectric LCD.
x Lower frequency of operation as compared to
that of PWM due to reduced number of pulses
in a cycle.
x Reduction of power consumption with fast
responding non emissive displays by selective
illumination of clusters.
x Reduction in power consumption without
affecting the image quality.
x Increase the matrix size of the display as
compared to the PWM if number of grayscales
is a constant.
x Increase in number of grayscales as compared
to pulse width modulation for a matrix size.
Monochrome images are considered in this paper to
illustrate the principle; higher reduction in power (as high
as 50%) [1] is possible in case of color images when
color sequential mode [2] is employed with independent
light sources of 3 colors. Power reduction is achieved
even when static image with full contrast are displayed
as compared to dimming techniques that depend on
overall low intensity of images to reduction of power [3].
Simple addressing waveforms and consequently simple
drivers can be used if micro pulse width modulation is
employed to drive slow responding devices like liquid
crystal displays as proposed elsewhere.
REFERENCES
[1] T N Ruckmongathan, “Intensity Modulation of Light
Sources for Gray Scales in Projection Displays”,
43-3, SID 2012 Digest, p 591,(2012).
[2] H Hasebe and S Kobayashi, “A full-color field
sequential LCD using modulated backlight,” in SID
Digest, pp. 81–83. (1985).
[3] T Shiga and S Mikoshiba, “Reduction of LCTV
backlight power and enhancement of gray scale
capability by using an adaptive dimming technique”,
SID 03 Digest, pp 1364-1367 (2003).