Controller provides image quality enhancement

Enhanced display controller aims to simplify the design and reduce the component count and system power consumption of mobile phones requiring display resolution up to VGA.

Toshiba Electronics Europe (TEE) has launched an enhanced display controller that will simplify the design and reduce the component count and system power consumption of mobile phones requiring display resolution up to VGA.

The compact and highly integrated IC supports a variety of host and display interfaces and is the industry's first controller to offer high-speed MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) DSI (Display Serial Interface) support.

Supplied in a compact BGA package, Toshiba's TC358730XBG controller features 8Mbit of embedded DRAM (eDRAM) to provide flexible image buffering for displays up to VGA resolution.

The IC provides single buffer operation for images of maximum VGA size, and automatic double buffering when handling two images with resolutions up to HVGA.

Designed for use across a variety of phone platforms, the TC358730XBG is enabled for existing MIPI DBI type-B (command and video data) and MIPI DPI (video data) plus MIPI DBI type-C (command data) baseband interface standards.

The controller also supports the upcoming high-speed serial MIPI DSI interface (to the baseband) for command and video data.

LCD module interface support is provided for parallel MIPI DPI interfaces as well as for a common high-speed serial interface.

The new TC358730XBG helps to reduce system power consumption by accepting high-speed burst access data transfer from the host, which can then enter low-power sleep mode while the controller updates the connected LCD at the required frame rate.

A low-power eDRAM implementation, a low leakage process technology and "sleep" and "deep sleep" modes further contribute to reduce power operation.

Onboard image processing functionality includes pixel doubling for scaling lower resolution images to higher resolution displays, rotation of incoming images, and the mirroring of both incoming and outgoing images.

In addition, Toshiba has integrated its Magic Square algorithm into the new controller to provide sophisticated image quality enhancement capabilities.

With the algorithm, an RGB666 18bit LCD panel can produce a quality similar as an RGB888 24bit LCD panel with up to 16 million colours.

The TC358730XBG is supplied in a 64-pin 0.5mm BGA package measuring just 5 x 5 x 1mm.

Core and I/O operating voltages are 1.8 and 2.5V, respectively.

Integration of a PWM output for flexible backlight control and a MIPI DBI type-C master for display control offers additional space and component count savings, while a MIPI DCS-compliant software interface ensures simple and rapid software integration.

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