Best approach, LCD on ARM7

Hello group,

For a new project, we have almost decided on AT91SAM7X256 for a variety of reasons. Primarily due to its rich peripheral set and previuos knowledge of Atmel Chips.

But we need to implement a LCD display, preferably 320x240 pixels into our system and we would like some advice on the best way to do this. With respect to both hardware and software development. I.e how to get a grip on this. would we use LCD controller or do direct IO from the processor?

Any help, comments, links are gladly appreciated.

Thanking you in advance.

Henrik

Reply to
henrik6650
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Controlling the LCD directly from IO will be a world of pain and there are a great many controllers out there which are cheap and simple (relatively). I use the on-board controller on my Sharp 79524 and my driver for it was written by Segger as part of their Emwin graphic library - that is the easy way of doing it, but it doesn't come cheap.

However, there are other graphics libraries out there and, although most are as expensive as Seggers, there are bargains to be had. Check out Jim's thread entitled "Small Graphical LCDs - Free Image Utility Available - What have I missed" which I haven't had time to test but looks like it is progressing at a good rate.

You could also use an OS like linux to handle the graphics but that would take all the fun out of it ;-)

Reply to
Tom Lucas

Exactly what I expected. I will look into this. Recommandations for controllers suitable for the AT91SAm7X series are gladly appreciated. Buying a library is an option that I will look into as well. We have been using other Segger products, so I think I will start by looking at the lib you suggest.

Thanks for the pointer, I will check that thread.

;-) I agree, something must be left for the lowlevel guys to be done.

Thank you for the fast reply.

Henrik

Reply to
henrik6650

I can recommend emWin very highly and their support is good too. The licensing needs to be looked at carefully because they have made it very complex and restrictive - if I'm decipgering it right then I can use it on Tuesdays but I have to have a greased weasel on a skateboard nearby ;-)

It looks pretty good from what I've seen of it and covers all the basic things I'd want a GUI to do. I've written a lot of extensions to emWin to tweak it to what I want so I might as well have started with a simpler library.

Thank you for not telling my boss I'm answering newsgroup questions instead of working;-)

Reply to
Tom Lucas

In article , Tom Lucas writes

No it's not. It's quite simple.

But the problem is a simpler library probably won't be able to do what you need on the next release. BTW the bits you would probably leave out others would want in...

I will :-)

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Reply to
Chris Hills

may be some ideas for you at:

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Don...

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Don McKenzie
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Reply to
Don McKenzie

I wouldn't say it is all that straightforward and it is quite restrictive. Someone else commented on this a while back when I was choosing between Segger and PEG. They are a bit more flexible during development but once you go into production then you are tied to using the library on one product even if you are using the same display hardware in several. I guess that is how they make their money but it is definitely more restrictive than other licenses I have and I think is is a bit more complex than most.

However, just to qualify that, it is not enough of a problem to prevent anyone from buying the library if that is the one they choose.

I think it is just useful for some people to have a leg up and just get a bit of simple graphics going which they can add their own functions to. It's not right for everyone but if you are only doing something really basic then it might be enough. It is certainly much easier to get going with a package like Segger's but the cost might be prohibitive for some.

Reply to
Tom Lucas

Hi Henrik - Olimex is coming out with a SAM7X256 dev board within a couple weeks that has an LCD display on it. You may want to check that out:

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-Mike

Reply to
Mike Noone

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