Display device having adjoining display elements, and a method of producing the display device

Claim 1

In a display device for displaying information in the form of a column by controlling a plurality of display elements forming the display device, said display elements adjoining one another and disposed geometrically in at least one row, each of said display elements having an electro-optical medium arranged between a front and a rear electrode and optically activated by a differential voltage applied to said electrodes and exceeding a threshold, selected front electrodes of said display elements being connected to form segment electrodes, selected rear electrodes being connected to form group electrodes, and the segment and group electrodes being controlled by electrical drive signals having a rectangular wave form, the improvement comprising: means for applying two identical first drive signals having a phase shift of π relative to one another and having an amplitude (u o ) corresponding at least to the threshold voltage of the electro-optical medium to two adjacent segment electrodes (a 1 , b 1 , c 1 ; a 2 , b 2 , c 2 ) adjoining each other in a row of display elements having a common group electrode, said first drive signals being bipolar square waves; means for applying a second drive signal identical with one of said first drive signals, however, having a two-fold amplitude (2 u o ) to a group electrode (B) comprising activated (b 3 B, b 2 B) and non-activated (b 1 B) display elements; means for applying a third drive signal to a group electrode (A) comprising exclusively activated display elements (a 1 A, a 2 A, a 3 A), said third drive signal having values of frequency, phase and amplitude such that the threshold voltage of the electro-optical medium is smaller than the differential voltage across said group electrode (A) comprising exclusively activated display elements (a 1 A, a 2 A, a 3 A) and respective segment electrodes; and means for applying a zero drive signal to a group electrode (C) comprising exclusively non-activated display elements (c 1 C, c 2 C, c 3 C).