Electrical equivalent circuit for AC plasma display panels

This paper proposes an equivalent circuit for ac plasma display panels (PDPs). The circuit is composed of nine capacitors, six diodes, and a circuit model for the plasma. The capacitors represent the dielectric and discharge gap capacitances of a PDP. The circuit model for plasma consists of three two-electrode discharge models, three diode bridges to rectify the discharge currents, and two current-controlled current sources to separate the ion and electron currents. The six diodes provide proper current paths for the ions and electrons so that the attraction of electrical charges to the electrodes is represented correctly. The validity of the proposed circuit was checked with experiments on a test PDP. The results of circuit simulation using the proposed equivalent circuit agreed well with experiment in every period of a PDP test waveform, but the previous circuit failed to predict the behavior of sustain charges.