News and New Products

Serial controller simplifies embedded displays

By Warren Webb -- EDN, 1/22/2004

Reach Technology recently introduced the SLCD controller board, enabling inexpensive, 8- and 16-bit-processor-based systems to provide a modern-looking graphical user interface (Picture). A standard UART serial port drives the SLCD, which accepts high-level commands to draw text and lines, create pushbuttons, and display stored graphic bit maps. The SLCD supports popular 320×240-pixel, QVGA displays from Hitachi, Kyocera, Lumex, NEC, Sharp, and others in monochrome and color and passive- and active-panel technology.

The device reports touch events using the serial port and identifies the button or screen area the user pressed. The board provides a 512-kbyte user-programmable flash memory for graphic storage and includes a beeper for audible touch-button feedback. You can create display bit maps on a desktop PC in bit-map format using any off-the-shelf graphics program, including Adobe Photoshop or even Microsoft Paint. The device then compresses the images and downloads them into the SLCD flash memory using a supplied software utility. Once you download the bit maps to the flash memory, you can display them anywhere on the screen using a simple high-level command. Supplied firmware includes a graphics library, text fonts, predefined bit maps, and a command interpreter.

Prices for the SLCD controller start at $100, depending on volume and board options. An evaluation kit with a color QVGA LCD touchpanel and power supply is available for $295.

Reach Technology, 1-510-770-1417, www.reachtech.com.