Dynamic Bandwidth Control for Display Interfaces

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

High-bandwidth display interfaces in electronic devices face challenges with increasing data transfer bandwidth, leading to costly operations and display artifacts, particularly in LCDs where high resolution demands more data transfer, often resulting in inefficiencies and artifacts.

Innovation Solution

Implementing dynamic bandwidth control circuitry that adjusts transmission based on content refresh rates, compressing higher-speed content and activating more transmission lanes/pipelines for faster refresh rates, while transferring low-speed content without compression to minimize power consumption and artifacts.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Manufacturing precision

If data transfer bandwidth is increased to support higher resolution displays, then display resolution is improved, but power consumption and display artifacts increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedisplay resolutionVSAvoidpower consumption
Core Design Contradiction:
Manufacturing precisionVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

The system dynamically adjusts the number of active transmission pipelines and applies compression selectively based on content characteristics and refresh rates. High-resolution displays use full bandwidth only when necessary (high refresh rates or complex content), otherwise reducing active pipelines to minimize power consumption while maintaining resolution capability.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes transmission parameters (compression level, number of active lanes/pipelines) based on content refresh rate and complexity. For low-speed content, compression is applied and fewer pipelines are activated, reducing power consumption while maintaining the ability to deliver high-resolution content when needed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

2Manufacturing precision

If data transfer bandwidth is increased to support higher resolution displays, then display resolution is improved, but display artifacts increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedisplay resolutionVSAvoiddisplay artifacts
Core Design Contradiction:
Manufacturing precisionVSObject-generated harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The system dynamically changes transmission parameters including compression level and pipeline allocation based on content characteristics. By adapting these parameters to match content complexity and refresh rate, the system minimizes compression artifacts while maintaining high resolution capability when needed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

3Speed

If more transmission pipelines are activated for high-speed content, then refresh rate is improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverefresh rateVSAvoidinterface complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
SpeedVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system dynamically activates or deactivates transmission pipelines based on detected content refresh rates. When high-speed content is detected, additional pipelines are activated to handle the increased bandwidth requirement. When content is slower, pipelines are deactivated, reducing effective complexity while maintaining the capability when needed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

4Loss of energy

If compression is applied to reduce data transfer, then power consumption is reduced, but compression artifacts increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvepower consumptionVSAvoidcompression artifacts
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of energyVSObject-generated harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The system dynamically adjusts compression parameters based on content characteristics and refresh rates. For high-speed content where artifacts are less noticeable, higher compression is applied. For low-speed content, lower compression or no compression is used, minimizing artifacts while still reducing power consumption compared to always using uncompressed high-bandwidth transmission.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentEP3825999A1High speed display interface
Publication Date: 2021.05.26 APPLE INC
  • EP3825999A1 patent drawingFigure 1~2
  • EP3825999A1 patent drawingFigure 3
  • EP3825999A1 patent drawingFigure 4

AI summary

Methods and devices employing circuitry for dynamically adjusting bandwidth control of a display interface are provided. The display interface or image content is dynamically adjusted to support both high-speed image data (e.g., 120 Hz image data) and lower-speed content (e.g., 60 Hz content). For example, in some embodiments, additional pixel pipelines and/or processing lanes may be activated during the rendering of high-speed image data, but not during the rendering of low-speed image data. Additionally or alternatively, high-speed image data, but not low-speed data, may be compressed to render high-speed content over an interface that supports only low-speed content.