Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501) today announced the  HD66763, HD66764, and HD66765 STN 
color LCD controller driver chip sets for graphic display, supporting the industry's 
largest class of large-screen STN color LCDs and providing high-quality, flicker-free 
display, for use with liquid crystal displays on mobile communication terminals such 
as digital mobile phones with a built-in simple browser.  Sample shipments will begin 
on January 29, 2001, for the HD66763 and HD66764, and in February 2001 for the HD66765 
in Japan.

Digital mobile phones are rapidly becoming widely used as data communication terminals 
handling information distribution services such as e-mail and Internet contents.  In 
line with this, the trend in the small LCD panels built into mobile phones is toward 
larger screen sizes with color graphics display capability in order to handle the 
increased amount of display data required for images and so forth, in addition to 
text-based displays such as phone numbers and kanji messages.  

Hitachi has previously released the HD66761 single-chip LCD controller driver (128 x 
80 pixels) as an STN color liquid crystal display driver for mobile communication 
terminals, and is now releasing the HD66763, HD66764, and HD66765 to meet the market 
demand for larger screen sizes, higher image quality, and moving picture display 
capability.  The HD66763 and HD66765 are segment drivers with a built-in display buffer 
memory and display controller supporting 256 and 4,096 colors, respectively, while the 
HD66764 is a common LCD driver with a built-in LCD drive power supply generation 
circuit.  A portrait-format LCD panel display of up to 128 x 176 pixels and 256 colors 
can be achieved with a combination of the HD66763 and HD66764, and a display of up to 
132 x 176 pixels and 4,096 colors with a combination of the HD66765 and HD66764.

These chip sets enable up to 140 characters (14 rows of 10 characters) to be displayed 
when using a 12 x 12-pixel kanji font, sufficient for e-mail messages of some length.  
In addition, on-chip bit operation functions*1 provide smooth processing of large 
amounts of data, such as color image data, making it possible to greatly reduce the 
graphics processing load on the microcomputer software.  

Larger screen sizes and color display capacity not only require a higher LCD drive
voltage, but are also associated with lower display quality and increased power 
dissipation.  

With most conventional LCD drive voltage systems, segment signals and common signals 
are driven within the same voltage range, with the result that a higher LCD drive 
voltage means an increase in the current dissipation of the liquid crystal display 
unit.  However, these chip sets use a HI-FAS LCD drive*2 method that makes it possible 
for segment signals operating at high speed to be driven at a low voltage, enabling 
the power dissipation of the liquid crystal display unit to be reduced by 30 to 40%.

Also, a defect of the conventional frame-elimination gradation*3 method when LCD 
panel responsivity is improved to handle moving picture displays, for example, is 
the occurrence of flicker due to the absence of an LCD panel afterimage, resulting 
in lower image quality.  These new chip sets use a pulse-width gradation method*4 
that does not depend on an afterimage, making it possible to eliminate flicker and 
achieve high image quality.

Supported mounting methods are COF*5 mounting, in which the device is mounted face-
down on a flexible film substrate, and TCP*6 mounting, in which the device is 
connected directly to the LCD glass.Hitachi plans to further extend the product 
lineup in the future with the development of models capable of handling even larger 
screen sizes.

Notes:	1. Bit operation functions: Data processing functions that perform data 
            rewriting and computational operations in display RAM for individual 
            display dots.

	2. HI-FAS (Hi-Frequency Amplitude Selection) drive: A method that uses two 
            different drive voltage ranges, with a high drive voltage for low-speed-
            operation common signals and a lower drive voltage for high-speed-operation 
            segment signals.  This makes it possible to secure a voltage difference 
            between segment and common signals for actual liquid crystal display, 
            and, although requiring a complex circuit configuration, enables the 
            liquid crystal display unit current dissipation to be reduced.

	3. Frame-elimination gradation: An intermediate tone is achieved by 
            performing on/off control for each line according to gradation data and 
            employing the LCD afterimage.

	4. Pulse-width gradation: An intermediate tone is achieved by adding an 
            on/off waveform to the LCD panel for each line only at certain times in 
            accordance with gradation data, thus reducing the on/off interval and 
            enabling a more flicker-free image to be achieved than with frame-
            elimination gradation.

	5. COF (Chip On Film): A mounting method in which a chip with a gold bump 
            is directly mounted face-down on a flexible film substrate.

	6. TCP (Tape Carrier Package): A package in which the chip is mounted on 
            a thin-film tape.  Ultra-thin type mounting is possible.

< Typical Applications >
• Mobile phones handling e-mail and WWW content services
• Mobile phones supporting high-speed data transfer (W-CDMA, GSM)
• Small PDAs, handheld GPS terminals, handheld POS terminals
• Portable digital audio players