Evaluation board eases display development

Because it can directly operate LCD panels, the board eliminates the need for a separate LCD controller, reducing overall system cost and shortening time to market.

A new microcontroller-based evaluation platform from Renesas Technology Europe includes direct drive capability for supporting QVGA size TFT and STN LCD panels.

Because it can directly operate LCD panels, this advanced board eliminates the need for a separate LCD controller, reducing overall system cost and shortening time to market.

The LCD evaluation demo board combines the Renesas H8S/2378 microcontroller and a graphics software/GUI (graphical user interface) package from Segger, providing a low-cost solution that opens vast new markets.

The supported Segger software includes library routines for creating any form of high-quality images on the display.

When running the Segger software, the demo evaluation board can support full-screen animations at 25 frames per second on a QVGA size panel.

This capability can be applied to produce smooth GUI selection menus, as well as custom animated screen images on the display panel.

"The single-chip H8S/2378-based hardware and software solution allows high-quality LCD panels to be incorporated into cost-sensitive applications", says W Kattermann, Group Marketing Manager CID Business Unit, Renesas Technology Europe.

"As a result, refrigerators, ovens, thermostats, electronic utility meters, medical monitoring and many other products can offer LCD displays that simplify operation and present data in visually appealing formats".

"Using the Renesas software application programming interface (API), Segger is able to offer its emWin and embOS software products with the H8S/2378 microcontroller for LCD applications".

"The Segger emWin product allows users to quickly and easily generate complex images with 2D graphics and animation support as well as user defined text font support".

"The embOS product complements the multi-bus and multiple direct memory access (DMA) architecture of the H8S/2378 device, handling software multi-tasking at minimal cost", says Rolf Segger, President of Segger Microcontroller Systeme.

The H8S/2378 microcontroller has ample speed (35MHz) and highly integrated peripherals for performing real-time control tasks.

It also removes the requirement of an external LCD controller with a frame buffer, by using the multiple-bus architecture and the on-chip external DMA controller to drive data from the external frame buffer to the LCD panel.

The control signals are synchronised to data transfer by using a timer pulse unit (TPU).

The on-chip functions operate LCD panels in a fully time-deterministic way, imposing virtually no overhead on the device's 16bit CISC CPU core.

Thus, the device is able to perform all other system connection algorithms and functions.

In addition, the chip's bus architecture, combined with the single-cycle access capability of the built-in Flash memory, allows low clock frequencies for driving LCDs and performing MCU functions.

The low clock frequencies reduce electromagnetic interference/electromagnetic susceptibility (EMI/EMS) levels and decrease power consumption.

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