18 Sep
Displays

How to use a graphic LCD Display?

An Introduction to Graphic LCD Displays

Graphic LCDs (liquid crystal displays) have a special position in the display industry. With the fast development of gadgets and digital devices, manufacturers need the latest technologies and techniques to provide high-quality products and services.

Graphic LCD Displays normally refer to monochrome graphics LCD displays or dot matrix LCD displays. Although color TFT (Thin Film Transistor) and OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) displays to meet all the definitions of graphic LCD displays and can also be categorized as graphic LCD displays, monochrome graphics LCD displays have been in the market much earlier than color TFT displays and they become the legacy type of display. That is the reason that Graphic LCD displays only refer to monochrome, not the full color.

Graphic LCD Interface

There are some popular graphic LCD interfaces, such as 8 bit or 16 bit 6800 and/or 8080 MCU interface, 3 or 4 wire SPI interface, I2C interface etc.

Applications

LCD modules are used in various devices and applications. They make it possible for mobile phones, laptops, and televisions to produce clear images. They can also be seen in watches, calculators, and digital readers to help users read text easily. Moreover, the automotive industry is utilizing this technology as well. Car manufacturers integrate them into interior designs to provide a display of various information and allow access to services such as GPS navigation.

Benefits

Low cost, easy to manufacture, low power consumption are the main benefits for monochrome graphic displays.

Graphic LCD tutorial

In this tutorial, the working and pinout of 128×64 graphical LCD AMG12864AR-B-Y6WFDY-AT-NV-Y (2.9″ 128×64 Graphic LCD Module) will be described. It has 128 columns and 64 rows, 128×64 has 128×64=8192 dots.

Graphical LCD controller

Graphical LCD is controlled by two S6B0108 controllers. A single S6B0108 controller is capable of controlling 4096 dots. So, for controlling a graphical LCD we need two S6B0108 controllers.

Further graphical LCD half’s division

Each half is further divided into 8 pages of equal sizes. Each page size is 8 rows and 64 columns. Each page contains 8*64=512 dots.

Page distribution in Pixels

Each page contains 64 pixels (64 columns and 8 rows). output on these pixels. Each pixel lights up when it is 0 and becomes off when it is 1. Each pixel contains 8 dots.

Graphical Lcd (128×64) Pinout

Please refer to Page 8 of the AMC12864A specification.

Graphical LCD pins are the same as other character LCDs. Only two new pins are introduced with the graphical LCD. These are CS1 and CS2. CS1 is chip select 1 it selects the first half or first S6B0108 controller of LCD. CS2 is chip select 2 it selects the second half or second S6B0108 controller of LCD. Both CS1 and CS2 are active low. By active-low I mean for selecting a first or second half, make its associated pin (CS1, CS2) low 0. All the other pins E (enable) R/W (read/write) RS or D/I (register select) works in the same way as for normal LCDs.

Like other LCDs we also first have to initialize graphical LCD.

15 Sep
Control Board

Introduction to Orient Display Embedded Project

Introduction to Orient Display Embedded Project

Orient Display is one of the world’s leading display LCD display manufacturers which was founded in 1996 by executives more than 25 years of R&D and production experience. Besides display, Orient Display also focused on embedded technologies which are including ARM architecture and has accumulated rich experience in embedded products.

Now Orient Display Technical Services include hardware, software and consulting.

 

Our Hardware team make prototypes in the shortest time according to your design ideas and requirements. We specialize in the design of cost-effective or a complex high-performance board to meet your requirement for high reliability in a short development cycle.

– Schematic Design

– PCB Layout

– Industry Product Customization

 

Our Software team specializes in Linux-based ARM® designs, PowerPC and x86 processor, to name a few. As a complete solution provider for Linux, Android and WinCE in embedded systems, we can solve the end-to-end system-related problems of your products.

– System migration, optimization and tailoring

– Drive development

– Kernel Tailoring

– Porting LINUX KERNEL to ARM, PPC or x86 Board

– APP development (application, Linux QT, Linux C/++）

 

Our FAE team also provide you with a full range of technologies for your products or semi-finished products.

– We provide consultation on software & hardware resources of our products;

– We solve problems encountered during the use of software & hardware manuals of our products;

– OEM and ODM after-sales technical support;

– Data maintenance and update;

– Orient Display products are backed by our Lowest Price Guarantee.

 

Development Sequence

 

1. System Requirements Analysis

* Design tasks, goals, specifications

–  This provided by our customers

* Functional and non-functional requirement

–  Include system performance, cost, power consumption, volume, weight and other factors

 

2. Architecture Design

A good architecture is the key to the success of the design. In this step, it is often necessary to do following things:

  • Select the main chip:

— ARM Cortex A, R or M,  or PowerPc or ColdFire

  • Determine the RTOS:

— Linux, uClinux, Vxworks, freeRTOS, WinCE

  • Select Display:

— TFT Panel, Sunlight Readable TFT, LCD Glass Panels, Graphic LCD,  OLED Display, Touch Panels, Embedded LCD display or Custom made display by Orient Display

  • Programming language:

— c/c++, python, Java

  • Development tools:

u-boot, busybox, QT, Ubuntu, stm32CubeIde, visual studio, android studio, keil uVision, RT-Tread studio

 

3. Hardware and Software Co-design

In order to shorten the product development cycle:

Hardware:  We usually begin project from evaluation board such as orient display AIY-A002M, AIY-A003M and AIY-A005M. later will Customized board to fit project, discard parts which don’t need.

Software Development Sequence:

  • We usually choose u-boot as Bootloader, it 1)init cpu to known state 2)init memory 3)init interrupt 4)init clock 5)load kernel to running address
  • Configure Kernel:

1) configure kernel system: *memory management, *file systems, *device driver, *network stack, *I/O Systems

2) write I/O device driver *char device driver, *block device driver, *net device driver

  • Select Applications:

*Select a user library *Build user application *Configure Initialization process *Build root FS

 

4. System Integration

Integrate the system’s software, hardware and execution devices together, debug, find and improve the errors in the unit design process.

 

5. System Test

Test the designed system to see if it meets the functional requirements given in the specification. The biggest feature of the embedded system development model is the comprehensive development of software and hardware.

 

In Conclusion

Orient Display has an amazing team of talented experts with the experience and capabilities to create an embedded display module from concept through to production.

If you have any questions, please contact our engineers at: tech@orientdisplay.com.

15 Sep
Displays

Types of TFT LCD Technology

TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) dominates the world flat panel display market now. Thanks for its low cost, sharp colors, acceptable view angles, low power consumption, manufacturing friendly design, slim physical structure etc., it has driven CRT(Cathode-Ray Tube) VFD ( Vacuum Fluorescent Display) out of market, squeezed LED (Light Emitting Diode) displays only to large size display area. TFT LCD displays find wide applications in TV, computer monitors, medical, appliance, automotive, kiosk, POS terminals, low end mobile phones, marine, aerospace, industrial meters, smart homes, handheld devices, video game systems, projectors, consumer electronic products, advertisement etc. For more information about TFT displays, please visit our knowledge base.

What we are talking about TFT LCD, it is a LCD that uses TFT technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in contrast to passive matrix LCDs or simple, direct-driven LCDs with a few segments without TFT in each pixel.

There are many types of TFT LCD Technology. Different TFT LCD technology has different characters and applications.

TN (Twisted Nematic) Type

The TN type TFT LCD display is one of the oldest and lowest cost type of LCD display technology. TN TFT LCD displays have the advantages of fast response times, but its main advantages are poor color reproduction and narrow viewing angles. Colors will shift with the viewing angle. To make things worse, it has a viewing angle with gray scale inversion issue. Scientist and engineers took great effort trying to resolve the main genetic issues. Now, TN displays can look significantly better than older TN displays from decades earlier, but overall TN TFT LCD display has inferior viewing angles and poor color in comparison to other TFT LCD technologies.

IPS (In-plane switching) Type

IPS TFT LCD display was developed by Hitachi Ltd. in 1996 to improve on the poor viewing angle and the poor color reproduction of TN panels. Its name comes from its in-cell twist/switch difference compared with TN LCD panels. The liquid crystal molecules move parallel to the panel plane instead of perpendicular to it. This change reduces the amount of light scattering in the matrix, which gives IPS its characteristic of much improved wide viewing angles and color reproduction. But IPS TFT display has the disadvantages of lower panel transmission rate and higher production cost compared with TN type TFT displays, but these flaws can’t prevent it to be used in high end display applications which need superior color, contrast, viewing angle and crispy images.

MVA (Multi-Domain Vertical Alignment) Type

Fujitsu invented Multi-domain Vertical Alignment (MVA) technology.

The mono-domain VA technology is widely used for monochrome LCD displays to provide pure black background and better contrast, its uniformly alignment of the liquid crystal molecules makes the brightness changing with the viewing angle.
MVA solves this problem by causing the liquid crystal molecules to have more than one direction on a single pixel. This is done by dividing the pixel into two or four regions – called domains – and by using protrusions on the glass surfaces to pretilt the liquid crystal molecules in the different directions. In this way, the brightness of the LCD display can be made to appear uniform over a wide range of viewing angles.

MVA is still used in some applications but it is gradually replaced by IPS TFT LCD Display.

AFFS (Advanced Fringe Field Switching) Type

This is an LCD technology derived from the IPS by Boe-Hydis of Korea. Known as fringe field switching (FFS) until 2003, advanced fringe field switching is a technology similar to IPS offering superior performance and color gamut with high luminosity. Color shift and deviation caused by light leakage is corrected by optimizing the white gamut, which also enhances white/grey reproduction. AFFS is developed by Hydis Technologies Co., Ltd, Korea (formally Hyundai Electronics, LCD Task Force).

In 2004, Hydis Technologies Co., Ltd licensed its AFFS patent to Japan’s Hitachi Displays. Hitachi is using AFFS to manufacture high end panels in their product line. In 2006, Hydis also licensed its AFFS to Sanyo Epson Imaging Devices Corporation. (Reference)

The AFFS is similar to the IPS in concept; both align the crystal molecules in a parallel-to-substrate manner, improving viewing angles. However, the AFFS is more advanced and can better optimize power consumption. Most notably, AFFS has high transmittance, meaning that less of the light energy is absorbed within the liquid crystal layer and more is transmitted towards the surface. IPS TFT LCDs typically have lower transmittances, hence the need for the brighter backlight. This transmittance difference is rooted in the AFFS’s compact, maximized active cell space beneath each pixel.

AFFS has been used in high end LCD applications, like high end cell.phone because of its superb contrast, brightness and color stability.

If you have any questions about Orient Display technologies and products, feel free to contact our engineers for details.

 

Reference:

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15 Sep
Displays

How to choose a TFT LCD Display Module?

TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) dominates the world flat panel display market now. Thanks for its low cost, sharp colors, acceptable view angles, low power consumption, manufacturing friendly design, slim physical structure etc., it has driven CRT(Cathode-Ray Tube) VFD ( Vacuum Fluorescent Display) out of market, squeezed LED (Light Emitting Diode) displays only to large size display area. TFT LCD displays find wide applications in TV, computer monitors, medical, appliance, automotive, kiosk, POS terminals, low end mobile phones, marine, aerospace, industrial meters, smart homes, handheld devices, video game systems, projectors, consumer electronic products, advertisement etc. For more information about TFT displays, please visit our knowledge base.

There a lot of considerations for how to choose a most suitable TFT LCD display module for your application. Please find the check list below to see if you can find a right fit.

Size

  • It is the start point for every project. There are two dimensions to consider: outside dimension (width, height, thickness) and AA (active area or pixel area). Orient Display’s standard product line ranges from 1.0” to 32”. Our OLED size can go down to 0.66” which fit for wearable devices.

Resolution

  • Resolution will decide the clearance. Nobody likes to see a display showing pixel clearly. That is the reason for better resolution, going from QVGA, VGA to HD, FHD, 4K, 8K. But higher resolution means higher cost, power consumption, memory size, data transfer speed etc. Orient Display offers low resolution of 128×128 to HD, FHD, we are working on providing 4K for our customers. For full list of resolution available, please see Introduction: LCD Resolution

Aspect Ratio or Orientation

  • Orientation of either landscape or portrait has to be taken into consideration. Beside Aspect Ratio is also very important. You might be satisfied with 4:3 in the past, now, you might be willing to trying wider screen like 16:9 or even 21:9.

Brightness

  • TFT screen brightness selection is very important. You don’t want to be frustrated by LCD image washout under bright light or you drain the battery too fast by selecting a super brightness LCD but will be used indoor only. There are general guidance listed in the table below.

Orient Display offers standard brightness, medium brightness , high brightness, and high end sunlight readable IPS TFT LCD display products for our customers to choose from.

Viewing Angle

  • If the budget is tight, TN type TFT LCD can be chosen but there is viewing angle selection of either 6 o’clock or 12 o’clock. Gray scale inversion needs to be taken of carefully. If a high-end product is designed, you can pay premium to select IPS TFT LCD which doesn’t have the viewing angle issue.

Contrast Ratio

  • It is similar to viewing angle selection, TN type TFT LCD has lower contrast but lower cost, while IPS TFT LCD has much high contrast but normally with higher cost. Orient Display provides both selections.

Temperature

  • Normal TFT LCD displays provide wide enough temperature range for most of the applications. -20 to 70oC. But there are some (always) outdoor applications like -30 to 80oC or even wider, special liquid crystal fluid has to be used. Heater is needed for operating temperature requirement of -40oC. Normally, storage temperature is not an issue, many of Orient Display standard TFT display can handle -40 to 85oC, if you have any questions, feel free to contact our engineers for details.

Power Consumption

  • Power consideration can be critical in some hand-held devices. For a TFT LCD display module, backlight normally consumes more power than other part of the display. Dimming or totally shutdown backlight technology has to be used when not in use. For some extreme power sensitive application, sleep mode or even using memory on controller consideration has to be in design. Feel free to contact our engineers for details.

Interface

Orient Display provides a wide variety of interfaces, HDMI, RGB, LVDS, MIPI, SPI, RS232 and Parallel MCU(6800,8080).

  • Genetic Interfaces: Those are the interfaces which display or touch controller manufacturers provide, including parallel, MCU, SPI(,Serial Peripheral Interface), I2C, RGB (Red Green Blue), MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface), LVDS (Low-Voltage Differential Signaling), eDP ( Embedded DisplayPort) etc. Orient Display has technologies to make the above interface exchangeable.
  • High Level Interfaces: Orient Display has technologies to make more advanced interfaces which are more convenient to non-display engineers, such as RS232, RS485, USB, VGA, HDMI etc. more information can be found in our serious products. TFT modules, Arduino TFT display, Raspberry Pi TFT display, Control Board.

Touch Panel

Touch panels have been a much better human machine interface which become widely popular. Orient Display has been investing heavy for capacitive touch screen sensor manufacturing capacity. Now, Orient Display factory is No.1 in the world for automotive capacitive touch screen which took around 18% market share in the world automotive market.

Orient can provide the traditional GG (Glass Glass) touch screen, OGS (One Glass Solution) touch screen, and PG (Plastic Glass) touch screen.

Based on the above three types of touch panel technology, Orient Display can also add different kinds of features like different material glove touch, water environment touch, salt water environment touch, hover touch, 3D (force) touch, haptic touch etc. Orient Display can also provide from very low cost fixed area button touch, single (one) finger touch, double finger (one finger+ one gesture) touch, 5 finger touch, 10 points touch or even 16 points touch

Considering the different shapes of the touch surface requirements, Orient Display can produce different shapes of 2D touch panel (rectangle, round, octagon etc.), or 2.5D touch screen (round edge and flat surface) or 3D (totally curved surface) touch panel.

Considering different strength requirements, Orient Display can provide low cost chemical tampered soda-lime glass, Asahi (AGC) Dragontrail glass and Corning high end Gorilla glass. With different thickness requirement, Orient Display can provide the thinnest 0.5mm OGS touch panel, to thickness more than 10mm tempered glass to prevent vandalizing, or different kinds of plastic touch panel to provide glass piece free (fear) or flexible substrates need.

Of course, Orient Display can also offer traditional RTP (Resistive Touch Panel) of 4-wire, 5-wire, 8-wire through our partners, which Orient Display can do integration to resistive touch screen displays.

Fully, Partial or Semi-Custom Solution

If you can’t find a very suitable TFT LCD Display in our product line, don’t be discouraged. The products listed on our website is only small part of standard products. We have thousands of standard products in our database, feel free to contact our engineers for details.

If you like to have a special display, Orient Display is always flexible to do partial custom solution. For example, to modify the FPC to different length or shape, or use as fewer pinouts as possible, or design an ultra-bright LCD display, or a cover lens with your company logo on it, or design an extreme low power or low cost TFT display etc. our engineers will help you to achieve the goals. The NER cost can start from hundreds of dollars to Thousands. In rare case, it can be tens of thousands of dollars.

A fully custom TFT LCD panel can have very high NRE cost. Depending on the size of the display, quantity and which generation production line to be used. The tooling cost can start from $100,000 to over $1M.

If you have any questions about Orient Display technologies and products, feel free to contact our engineers for details.

 

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15 Sep
Displays

Pros and Cons of TFT Displays

TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) we are talking here is TN (Twisted Nematic) type TFT displays which is align with the term in the TV and computer market. Now, TFT displays have taken over the majority of low-end color display market. They have wide applications in TV, computer monitors, medical, appliance, automotive, kiosk, POS terminals, low end mobile phones, marine, aerospace, industrial meters, smart homes, consumer electronic products etc. For more information about TFT displays, please visit our knowledge base.

Talking about Pros and Cons of TFT displays, we need to clarify which display they are compared to. To some displays, TFT displays might have advantages, but compared with another display, the same character might become the disadvantages of TFT displays. We will try our best to make clear as below.

Pros of TFT Displays

  • Less Energy Consumption: Compared with CRT(Cathode-Ray Tube) VFD ( Vacuum Fluorescent Display) and LED (Light Emitting Diode) display, which made laptop possible.
  • Good visibility and color: Compared with old CSTN (Color Super Twisted Nematic) or passive LCDs
  • Good response time and viewing angle: Compared with old CSTN or passive LCDs
  • Good cost: Compared with high end IPS (In-Plane Switching) LCD displays, AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic LED) displays and recent micro-LED display.
  • Excellent physical design. TFT displays are very easy to design and integrated with other components, such as resistive and capacitive touch panels (RTP, CTP, PCAP) etc.
  • Minimum Eye Strain: Because TFT panel itself doesn’t emit light itself like CRT, LED, VFD. The light source is LED backlight which is filtered well with the TFT glass in front for the blue light.
  • Space efficient design (can be placed anywhere in your workspace on a rotational mount so you can turn it in all directions).

Cons of TFT Displays

  • More Energy Consumption: Compared with monochrome displays and OLED (PMOLED and AMOLED) display, which makes TFT displays less attractive in wearable device.
  • Poor color saturation: Compared with IPS LCD displays and AMOLED displays.
  • Poor response time and viewing angle: Compared with IPS LCD displays, AMOLED displays and recent micro-LED display. TFT displays still need to note viewing angle of 6 o’clock or 12 o’clock in the datasheet and still have the gray scale inversion issue.
  • High tooling cost: Depending on which generation production line to produce and also depending on its size. Building a TFT display fab normally need billions of dollars. For a big size display which needs high generation production line to produce. The NRE cost can be millions dollars.
  • Sunlight Readability: Because it is very expensive to produce transflective TFT LCD displays, in order to be readable under the sunlight, very bright LED backlight (> 1,000 nits) has to be used. The power needed is high and also need to deal with heat management. If used together with touch panel, expensive optical bonding (OCA or OCR) and surface treatment (AR, AF) technologies have to be used.

If you have any questions about Orient Display technologies and products, feel free to contact our engineers for details.

 

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14 Sep
Control Board

How to select ARM Processors

How to select ARM Processors

Introduction

The widest range of microprocessor cores for almost all application markets. Explore ARM. Performance, power & cost requirements for almost all application markets, processors are crucial. The system performance depends heavily on its hardware; this article will guide you through a study of the ARM Processor and be of great assistance in your decision-making.

 

A Brief Introduction to ARM

Figure 1. ARM Processors Roadmap

 

Before 2003, there are classic ARM Processors which are including ARM7(ARMv4 Architecture), ARM9(ARMv5 Architecture), ARM11(ARMv6 Architecture).  ARM7 has no MMU (memory management unit), cannot run multi-user multi-process system such as Linux and WinCE. Only can run system such as ucOS and ucLinux which do not need MMU.  ARM9 and ARM11 are embedded CPUs with MMU, which can run Linux.

After 2003, When it came to the ARMv7 architecture, it was named after Cortex and divided into three series: Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M.

  • Cortex-A — application processor cores for a performance-intensive systems
  • Cortex-R – high-performance cores for real-time applications
  • Cortex-M – microcontroller cores for a wide range of embedded applications

Simply put, Cortex-A series are suitable for applications that have high computing requirements, run rich operating systems, and provide interactive media and graphics experience. Cortex-R are suitable for that require reliability, high availability, fault tolerance, maintainability and real-time response. Cortex-M series are aimed at cost and power-sensitive MCUs and end applications.

 

Cortex-A VS Cortex-R VS Cortex-M

Cortex-A

The Cortex-A category of processors is dedicated to Linux and Android devices. Any devices – starting from smartwatches and tablets and continuing with networking equipment – can be supported by Cortex-A processors.

  • Cortex-A processors (A5, A7, A8, A9, A12, A15 and A17) is based on the ARMv7-A architecture
  • The set of common features for A-processors includes a media processing engine (NEON), a tool for security purposes (Trustzone), and various supported instruction sets (ARM, Thumb, DSP etc.)
  • The main features of Cortex-A processors are top performance and brilliant power efficiency closely bundled to provide users with the best service possible

The main characteristics of Cortex-A processor:

Cortex-A5:  The Cortex A5 is the smallest and lowest power member of the Cortex A series, but it can still demonstrate multicore performance, it is compatible with A9 and A15 processors.

Cortex-A7:  The power consumption of A7 is nearly the same as A5, But the performance provided by the A7 is 20% higher than A5 as well as full architectural compatibility with Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A17. The Cortex-A7 is an ideal choice for cost -sensitive smartphone and tablet implementations.

Contrex-A15: The Cortex-A15 is the highest performance member of this series, providing twice the performance than A9.  A15 finds its application in high-end devices, low-power servers, and wireless infrastructure. This is the first processor support for data management and virtual environment solutions.

Contrex-A17: The Cortex-A17 demonstrates 60% higher performance than that of the A9. The main aim is satisfying the needs of premium-class devices.

Contrex-A50: Contrex-A50, latest series, are built on the ARMv8 architecture and bring with them support for Arch64-bit an energy-efficient system. An obvious reason for the move to 64-bit is the support of more than 4GB of physical memory, which is already achieved on Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7.

 

Cortex-R

Cortex-R processors target high-performance real-time applications such as hard disk controllers, networking equipment media players, and other similar devices, Furthermore, it also great support for the automotive industry such as airbags, braking systems and engine management.

Cortex-R4:  Cortex-R4 is well suited for automotive applications. It can be clocked up to 600 MHz, has an 8-stage pipeline with dual-issue, pre-fetch and a low latency interrupt system making it ideal for safety critical systems.

Cortex-R5: Cortex-R5 extends features offered by R4 and adding increased efficiency, reliability and enhance error management. The dual-core implementation makes it possible to build very powerful, flexible systems with real-time responses.

Cortex-R7: The Cortex-R7 significantly extends the performance. They feature an 11-stage pipeline and enable both out-of-order execution and high-level branch prediction. Tools can be implemented for lock-step, symmetric, and asymmetric multiprocessing. The generic interrupt controller is another significant feature that should be mentioned.

 

Cortex-M

Cortex-M designed specifically to target MCU market. The Cortex-M series is built on the ARMv7-M architecture (used for Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4), and the smaller Cortex-M0+ is built on the ARMv6-M architecture. It is safe to say that the Cortex-M has become for the 32-bit world what the 8051 is for the 8-bit – an industry-standard core supplied by many vendors. The Cortex-M series can be implemented as a soft core in an FPGA, for example, but it is much more common to find them implemented as MCU with integrated memories, clocks and peripherals. Some are optimized for energy efficiency, some for high performance and some are tailored to a specific market segment such as smart metering

For applications that are particularly cost sensitive or are migrating from 8-bit to 32-bit, the smallest member of the Cortex-M series might be the best choice.

Cortex-M0: The Cortex-M0+ uses the Thumb-2 instruction set and has a 2-stage pipeline. Significant features are the bus for single-cycle GPIO and the micro trace buffer.

Cortex-M3&M4:  The Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 are very similar cores. Each offers a 3-stage pipeline, multiple 32-bit busses, clock speeds up to 200 MHz and very efficient debug options. The significant difference is the Cortex-M4 core’s capability for DSP. The Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 share the same architecture and instruction set (Thumb-2). If your application requires floating point math, you will get this done considerably faster on a Cortex-M4 than you will on a Cortex-M3. That said, for an application that is not using the DSP or FPU capabilities of the Cortex-M4, you will see the same level of performance and power consumption on a Cortex-M3. In other words, if you need DSP functionality, go with a Cortex-M4. Otherwise, the Cortex-M3 will do the job.

 

Conclusion

Figure 2. Cortex overview

 

ARM processors offer a variety of capabilities for different purposes. With a little bit of thought and investigation, you will be able to find the right processor that suits your application needs. whether it’s for a high-end tablet or an ultra-low-cost wireless sensor node.

It is a challenge to make the right choice of Cortex core and turn the idea into reality. But a team of experienced professionals can take care of all the issues and implement concepts of any complexity.

Orient Display has focused on ARM processor-related technologies for many years, and has accumulated rich experience in the development and implementation of ARM architecture products. While continuously launching development platforms and core board that meet the general needs of the market, it also addresses the individual project needs of customers. Provide customized services.

Our hardware team can produce prototypes in the shortest time according to your design ideas and needs. Our software team can help you customize all the functions of the cutting driver layer.

Contact us and we will help to make your plans from initial idea to final product.

08 Sep
Control Board, Displays

How to use Graphic LCD Displays with Raspberry Pi?

How to connect Graphic LCD to Raspberry PI?

The article shows how to hook up a 128×64 graphics LCD display to a Raspberry Pi.

LCD used is a 128×64 with LCD controller of ST7565. It can be powered directly from the Raspberry Pi 3.3V rail. It requires 5 GPIO pins for data.

The schematic is, CS (Chip Select), RST(Reset) and A0 (Register Select) can be connected to any 3 GPIO pins. In this example, 8,24 and 25 are default values. Different values can be specified as parameters when instantiating the ST7565 Python class. SCLK (Serial Clock) on the GLCD goes to GPIO 11 which is the Pi’s serial clock. SID (Serial Input Data) on the GLCD goes to GPIO 10 on the Pi which is MOSI. GPIO 10 and 11 must be used for SID and SCLK. Vdd is connected to a 3.3V pin on the PI and the grounds are also connected.

The LCD has a RGB backlight. The LED pins can go to GPIO’s 16,20 and 21. To control the color from the Pi, specifying RGB pins when instantiate the ST7565 class. The resistors must be placed in series to limit the current to prevent LED breakdown. The LED brightness can be changed by using different values of resistors. It will be best to adjust the current to be around 20mA, of course, different values will result in a different mix of colors. It is very difficult to mix a pure white color. Please calculate the resistor value carefully, at 40mA, the LED brightness will decrease sharply with time, with the current of close to 60mA, the LED might be breakdown and be permanently damaged.

How to program a Graphic LCD?

The display is 128 pixels horizontal by 64 pixels vertical. The LCD can be broken into 8 horizontal pages. They are numbered from 3 to 0 and 7 to 4 up to down. Each page includes 128 columns and 8 rows of pixels. To address the pixels, specifying the page and column number, and send a byte to fill 8 vertical pixels at once.

The display has SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) to connect to Pi. SPI requires 3 lines MOSI, MISO and Clock. The Pi is the master and the GLCD is the slave. In this example, Only writing to GLCD and not ready, so the connection to MOSI and Clock lines are needed. MOSI is the output from the Pi to the GLCD and the Clock synchronizes the timing.

  1. Enable SPI on Raspberry Pi first
  2. From the raspi-config menu, select Advanced Options, then SPI. Then select Yes for “ Would like the SPI interface to be enabled”. Hit OK, Reboot. Select Yes for “ the SPI kernel module to be loaded by default”. Reboot the Pi after enabling SPI. Then test SPI using IsmodIt should return SPI_bcm2708 or spi_bcm2835 depending on the Pi version. The python SPI library requires python2.7 dev which can be installed with apt-get install:
  3. The Python SPI library is called py-spidev. It can be installed using git:GLCD Python library for the Pi can be downloaded from the GitHub site.
  4. The main ST7565 library (st7565.py) handles drawing, text & bitmaps, and a font module (xglcd_font.py) to load X-GLCD fonts. Here are the basic drawing commands which to create points, lines, rectangles, circles, ellipses, and regular polygons:For more details, please refer to the reference below or contact our engineers.
03 Sep
Control Board

Getting started with projects based on STM32G071RB Board using STM32CubeIDE

Getting started with projects based on STM32G071RB Board using STM32CubeIDE

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Getting started with a 32-bit ARM-based microcontroller is always a little daunting. There are too many of available microcontrollers, platforms, development boards, tools, and software. This note describes step by step how to begin a LED project.

Getting started: about Development Board STM32G071RB

Features:

  • Core: Arm® 32-bit Cortex®-M0+ CPU, frequency up to 64 MHz
  • Up to 128 Kbytes of Flash memory, 36 Kbytes of SRAM
  • 7-channel DMA controller with flexible mapping
  • 12-bit, 0.4 µs ADC (up to 16 ext. channels)
  • Two 12-bit DACs, low-power sample-and-hold
  • Two I2C, Four USARTs , one low-power UART , two SPIs

 

Getting started: Install STM32CubeIDE

You can download STM32CubeIDE from their st.com.  It’ s free. Install STM32CubeIDE following STM32CubeIDE installation guide.

 

Your first project: LED blink

Before we can start writing code we need to create a project. This is similar to most other IDEs – projects are used to bundle together all of your settings, code, and definitions into a single collection all managed from the same application.

 

 

STEP 1: Start a new project, From the top left icon ( Or under the menu File > New > STM32 Project) to get started.

 

Step 2: Project name: G0_LED, then click Finish Button.

From schematic diagram that the LED4 is controlled by STM32G071 and the port is PA5.

Step 3: From System Core > SYS, select Serial Wire, setup PA5 as GPIO_OUTPUT.

Setup use label for PA5 as LED_GREEN as below:

 

Step 4: Then Generate code.

 

CubeIDE, which this functionality is developed upon, generates C files to work with under a Src directory, and puts a HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) into an Includes directory. It appears CubeIDE works the exact same way. Expand the folders on the right under the project view and see what it has generated to work for you.

 

 

Step 5: Let’ s add a smidge of C code of our own now! After the Infinite Loop area, we’re going to add code to toggle the LED under section 3 as below:

 

 

Compiling the project and downloading it to the board

STM32CubeIDE actually makes it pretty easy to compile our work and get it onto the STM32 chip.  The first step is to produce the compiled .elf ( a binary version of our code).  To generate the .elf, we need to do a build. This is as easy as pressing the build button on the toolbar.

Now, build information is presented in the console at the bottom of the screen.

Now what we want to do is send this compiled binary onto the STM32 microcontroller.

Let’s plug in the dev kit:

The Red power LED (to the left of the blue switch) is lit, as is the larger communication LED (by the USB cable). Inside STM32CubeIDE, select the run button.

This will open the Run dialog ( as it’s the first time we’ve run it). The settings we choose now will be saved as a run configuration which we can re-use or edit later.

Simply press Apply and then OK and the download will proceed. The Console will now fill with some interesting text:

The LED is on and off every 500ms. you’ve got everything set up.

23 Jul
Displays

TFT LCD Panel (Glass) Manufacturers Introduction

TFT LCD Panel (Glass) Manufacturers Introduction

 

 

Starting from the 2nd quarter of 2021, the LCD panel prices have kept increasing. We expect that the high prices will keep for at least 6 months. There are a lot of manufacturers of making LCD modules but there are only a few LCD panel or LCD glass manufacturers in the world. The reasons are 1) In order to build a LCD panel fab, billions of dollars of the equipment investment is needed; 2) The technology threshold is high. There are a lot of patent traps on the way; 3) Once in production, the fab has to keep running otherwise it is easy to lose money because of the heavy investment and the high pay for the engineers; 4), The worst is that the manufacturers have keep on investment in order to keep the technology and price competitive.   Let’s take a look of these LCD panel manufacturers.

AUO (AU Optrinics Corporation，友达光电):

In Taiwan.  It was formed in 2001 by the merger of Acer Display Technology Inc and Unipac Optoelectronics Corporation. It has G3.5 to G8.5 production lines.

 

BOE (Beijing Oriental Electronics Group Co., Ltd，京东方):

In China. The biggest LCD panel manufacturer in the world now.  BOE has G4 (Chengdu), G5 (Beijing), G5.5 (Ordos), G6 (Hefei, Chengdu, Mianyang, Dalian), G8 (Beijing, Hefei, Chongqing), Fuqing, Dalian, Chongqing) and 10.5 (Hefei) production lines.

 

CSOT (China Star Optoelectronics Technology，华星光电):

In China. It was joint ventured by TCL and Shenzhen Government. It mainly focusses on TV and cell phone screens. It has G6 (Shenzhen), G8.5 (Shenzhen, Suzhou,Wuhan) and G11 (Shenzhen) production lines.

 

CSOT (China Star Optoelectronics Technology,华星光电):

In China. It was joint ventured by TCL and Shenzhen Government. It mainly focusses on TV and cell phone screens. It has G6 (Shenzhen), G8.5 (Shenzhen, Suzhou,Wuhan) and G11 (Shenzhen) production lines.

 

CTC (Century Technology Shenzhen Co Ltd, 深超光电):

In China. CTC is the joint ventured by Foxconn and Shenzhen Government.  CTC has a G5 production line.

 

Giantplus Technology (凌巨科技):

In China, In 2019, it was acquired by Toppan in Japan. Ortus Technology holds 53.1% Giantplus shares. Giantplus has a G3 and a G4 production lines.

 

Hannstar (HSD, HannStar Display Corporation, 瀚宇彩晶):

In Taiwan. Hannstar has a G5 IPS production line.

 

HKC (惠科股份):

In China. HKC mainly produces LCD panels for monitors. HKC has 4 G8.6 production lines in Chongqing, Chuzhou, Mianyang, Changsha.

 

Innolux Corp (INX, 群创光电):

In Taiwan. One of the daughter company of Foxconn/Hon Hai.  In 2010, it bought the then famous LCD manufacturer, ChiMei, then changed its name to Innolux. It has G7.5 production lines.

 

IVO (InfoVision Optoelectronics (Kunshan) Co.,LTd. 龙腾光电):

IVO mainly produces laptop LCD panels. IVO has G5 production line.

 

JDI (Japan Display Inc, 日本显示):

In Japan. Joint ventured by Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba in 2011. It mainly produces smaller size panels. JDI has G6 production line.

 

Laibo (Shenzhen Laibao Hi-Tech Co.,Ltd, 莱宝高科):

Laibo has a G8.5 (Wuhan) and a G2.5 (Shenzhen) production lines.

 

LG.Philips Displays (LGD乐金电子):

In Korea and China. It is used to be the 2nd biggest TFT LCD manufacturers. LG also planned to stop the production but delayed the plan after the price increased. LG has G7.5 and G8.5 (Guangzhou) production lines.

 

Mantix Display Technology Co.,Ltd (华彩佳):

In China. Original Matix is the partner of CPT (Chunghwa Picture Tubes 中华映管). After CPT filed bankruptcy in 2019, Mantix took over CPT G6 production line.

 

Panasonic (松下):

In Japan. Panasonic has a G8.5 production line.

 

Panda (Nanjing CEC Panda LCD Technology Co.，Ltd. ,中电熊猫):

In China.  It got the technology from Sharp. It mainly produces LCD panels for TV.

 

Samsung Display （SDC,三星显示):

In Korea. It used to be the biggest TFT LCD manufacturers before it was dethroned by BOE in 2019. Because of tough competition, Samsung planned to stop the production in 2021 but delayed because the price increase during the pandemic.  Samsung has G7 and G8.5 production lines.

 

Shanghai Hehui Photoelectric Co., Ltd (上海和辉光电):

Hehui also produces AMOLED only and It has a G4.5 LTPS AMOLED production line.

 

Sharp （夏普):

In Japan and China. The pioneer and queen of LCD industry. Because of high cost and tough competitor, Sharp was acquired by Foxconn/Hon Hai in 2016. Sharp has G8, G8.5(Suzhou), G10, G10.5 (Guangzhou) production lines.

 

Tianma Microelelctronics（TM,天马微电子):

In China and Japan. In 2011, Tianma acquired 70% share from NEC to rename as “NLT Technologies”. Tianma has G4.5 (Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan), G5 (acquired from SVA: SVA Information Industry Co.,Ltd.). G5.5 (Xianmen, Shanghai for AMOLED),  G6 (Xiamen, Wuhan for AMOLED).

 

Truly Opto-electronics (信利光电):

In China, Truly was mentioned to have a G4.5 for AMOLED and a G2.5 for TFT LCD production lines.

 

Visionox (维信诺):

Actually, Visionox doesn’t product LCD. It produces AMOLED and PMOLED only. It has a G5.5 AMOLED and a G6 flexible AMOLED production lines.

LCD Motherglass Generation Classifications
Generations Motherglass Size Notes
G1 320*400 \
G2 370*470 \
G3 550*650 15″/4pcs
G4 680*800 15″/6pcs
G4.5 730*920 15″/8pcs
G5 1100*1300 27″/6pcs
G5.5 1300*1500 27″/8pcs
G6 1500*1850 32″/8pcs, 37″/6pcs
G7 1950*2250 42″/8pcs, 46″/6pcs
G8 2160*2460 46″/9pcs, 52″/6pcs
G8.5 2200*2500 55″/6pcs
G10 2880*3100 65″/6pcs, 60″/8pcs
G10.5 2940*3370 65″/8pcs
G11 3000*3320 70″/8pcs

 

23 Jul
Displays

Impact of Semi-Conductor Shortage on Display Manufacturers

Impact of Semi-Conductor Shortage on Display Manufacturers

Starting from June 2020, the LCD panel prices started increasing. By the end of 2020, the average panel price increased 50-70%. IC prices following the panel price increase. We saw the 1st wave of IC price increase starting the 3rd quarter 2020, and the 2nd wave around February 2021. Worse than price increase, the panel and IC shortage has become serious issue for many manufacturers. GM, Ford and other car makers idled their production and cut production which affects their earnings. Even the newly elected president Biden ordered supply chain review in the first month in his office. What are the reasons of LCD panel and IC frenzy become the global crisis?

 

 

The Reason for the crisis

 

  • – Pandemic: The direct and root cause of causing the crisis is the pandemic.  In March 2020, a lot of countries issued executive orders for people to stay at home. The demand for various products dropped sharply. A lot of manufacturers cancelled or pushed out orders.  The world 1st and 2nd biggest LCD manufacturers Samsung and LG declared the plan to stop all the LCD production. A lot of LCD panel and IC manufacturers cut the production because of order drop or executive orders to stay at home. They use stock instead of the fresh production to fill the demands.

 

  • – Chaos of Executive orders and planning: Because of the pandemic, nobody knew what was ahead.  Executive orders were updated monthly, the same as the planning for schools, plants, companies and other organizations. By July, a lot of schools started to realize that it was not practical to open the schools in personal and needed every student to have online classes which suddenly boosted the orders of laptops, monitors, TVs and other entertainment devices. The LCD panel manufacturers couldn’t ramp up for so fast increased demands. The stock was cleared quickly and LCD factories had been running 7/24 starting last fall which still couldn’t keep up the order speed. The price increase followed right after.

 

  • – Zero Stock Policies: LCD panel and IC prices had been inclined for more than a decade. There had been a fixed mindset for a lot of commodity executives and managers that the prices will fall ever. Because the competition was tough for suppliers, the big customers demand for OTD (On Time Delivery), especially for automotive makers. They don’t hold much or any stock in order to improve the cost down and cash flow. The result is that they totally rely on suppliers to hold the inventory. With the pandemic, a lot of customers first pushed out orders which made the supplier chill in spine. The suppliers tried to cut their inventory in order to prepare enough cash for industrial winter.

 

  • – Panic: A lot of companies had fixed mindset that they could ask the suppliers to shorten lead time and keep supplying with many years free of issues. When they suddenly realized that the old practices could cause their production line down situation, most of them were in panic and ordered much more than they really need. The quantities were suddenly piled up to unreasonable situation.  Most of the IC manufacturers issued notices to the customers that their orders NCNR (Not Changeable and Not Cancellable) trying to prevent the unreasoning orders.

 

  • – Stimulus Packages: Government of many countries have been racing to issue stimulus packages and money flood the market. It is true that some people were struggling to stay away hunger. But most of the governments didn’t identify the real needed people. They used the ways of helicopter distributing money. A lot of people used the money to upgrade their household and entertainment.  As most of the governments promised supplying the money unlimited to the market without any cap, the majority of the companies and personals are free of worries and expect the governments will always come to rescue if they are in trouble. The competition of spending is flooding.

 

Consequences

 

  • – By the end of 2020, the LCD panels for TV increased 32” 119%, 43” 81%, 55” 84%, 65” 46%.

 

  • – By the end of 2020, LCD controllers/driver prices increased around 20%. By March 2021, the prices increased 20-30% again. The IC shortage made many factories line down. The IC prices in distributions and after market are even higher.  There was a blog mentioned a STmicro MCU price increased from 5 yuan to 70 yuan.

 

  • – The prices of materials used for LCD production increased too.  ITO glass, polarizer, FPB, PCB, packing material, photoresist, chemicals etc.

 

  • – The prices of other components increased too. Resistors, capacitors, LED, etc.

 

  • – The commodity prices increased too, copper, nickel, plastic (oil), water, electricity.

Forecast

 

  • – We believe that the production capacity of LCD panels and ICs are largely balanced with the real market demands. With the frenzy over, the prices will drop eventually.

 

  • – The LCD panel price increase is still slowdown. We believe the LCD panel price will keep flat but still at the high price level in 3rd and 4th quarter 2021. It is no benefit for LCD panel manufacturers with price drop if the IC is still in tight supply. We should see LCD panel price drop in 2nd quarter 2022. The price drop speed should accelerate in 4th quarter 2022. Super-hot will create super cold. We believe we will see LCD panel winter in 2023 which should last 2-3 years.

 

  • – IC is still in rapid price increase.  It is our predication that IC price should stop increase in 2nd quarter 2022. We should see the price drop starting on 4th quarter 2022.

 

  • – The biggest threat in the market is that the real market is not big. Most of the companies ordered too much, they might cancel some of the orders.  When we see some customers start to cancel the orders, it is the same to see the first leave falling, the fall comes. The tread will accelerate like dominos. The winter for the industry will come.

 

  • – We see this wave of frenzy as man-made. The governments have been printed too much money. Inflation is inevitable.

 

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