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  • Developing LCD Applications for TM4C12x MCU

    • SPMA082 August   2021 TM4C1230C3PM , TM4C1230D5PM , TM4C1230E6PM , TM4C1230H6PM , TM4C1231C3PM , TM4C1231D5PM , TM4C1231D5PZ , TM4C1231E6PM , TM4C1231E6PZ , TM4C1231H6PGE , TM4C1231H6PM , TM4C1231H6PZ , TM4C1232C3PM , TM4C1232D5PM , TM4C1232E6PM , TM4C1232H6PM , TM4C1233C3PM , TM4C1233D5PM , TM4C1233D5PZ , TM4C1233E6PM , TM4C1233E6PZ , TM4C1233H6PGE , TM4C1233H6PM , TM4C1233H6PZ , TM4C1236D5PM , TM4C1236E6PM , TM4C1236H6PM , TM4C1237D5PM , TM4C1237D5PZ , TM4C1237E6PM , TM4C1237E6PZ , TM4C1237H6PGE , TM4C1237H6PM , TM4C1237H6PZ , TM4C123AE6PM , TM4C123AH6PM , TM4C123BE6PM , TM4C123BE6PZ , TM4C123BH6PGE , TM4C123BH6PM , TM4C123BH6PZ , TM4C123BH6ZRB , TM4C123FE6PM , TM4C123FH6PM , TM4C123GE6PM , TM4C123GE6PZ , TM4C123GH6PGE , TM4C123GH6PM , TM4C123GH6PZ , TM4C123GH6ZRB , TM4C1290NCPDT , TM4C1290NCZAD , TM4C1292NCPDT , TM4C1292NCZAD , TM4C1294KCPDT , TM4C1294NCPDT , TM4C1294NCZAD , TM4C1297NCZAD , TM4C1299KCZAD , TM4C1299NCZAD , TM4C129CNCPDT , TM4C129CNCZAD , TM4C129DNCPDT , TM4C129DNCZAD , TM4C129EKCPDT , TM4C129ENCPDT , TM4C129ENCZAD , TM4C129LNCZAD , TM4C129XKCZAD , TM4C129XNCZAD

       

  • CONTENTS
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  • Developing LCD Applications for TM4C12x MCU
  1.   Trademarks
  2. 1TFT LCD Overview
    1. 1.1 Typical Interfaces
    2. 1.2 Frame Buffer
      1. 1.2.1 Frame Buffer Size Calculation
    3. 1.3 Frame Rate (FPS)
    4. 1.4 Touch Display
  3. 2LCD Controller Overview
    1. 2.1 Block Diagram
      1. 2.1.1 Raster Controller
      2. 2.1.2 LIDD Controller
  4. 3TivaWare Graphics Library (grlib)
    1. 3.1 Graphics Library Structure
      1. 3.1.1 Display Driver Overview
      2. 3.1.2 Low-Level Primitive Graphics API Overview
      3. 3.1.3 Widget API Overview
      4. 3.1.4 Input Driver Overview
  5. 4Display Driver Adaptation
    1. 4.1 Off-Screen Display Drivers
    2. 4.2 Individual Display Driver Functions
      1. 4.2.1 Init
      2. 4.2.2 ColorTranslate
      3. 4.2.3 PixelDraw
      4. 4.2.4 PixelDrawMultiple
      5. 4.2.5 LineDrawH
      6. 4.2.6 LineDrawV
      7. 4.2.7 RectFill
      8. 4.2.8 Flush
  6. 5Fonts
    1. 5.1 Creating Custom Fonts for Different Languages
  7. 6Useful Utilities
    1. 6.1 Pnmtoc
    2. 6.2 mkstringtable and ftrasterize
  8. 7References
  9.   A Appendix A
  10. IMPORTANT NOTICE
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APPLICATION NOTE

Developing LCD Applications for TM4C12x MCU

Trademarks

TivaWare is a trademark of Texas Instruments.

TrueType, OpenType, PostScript, and Windows are registered trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

1 TFT LCD Overview

Thin Film Transistor (TFT) is a variant of LCD that uses TFT technology to improve image qualities. A TFT is an active matrix LCD, in contrast to passive matrix LCD or direct-driven LCD such as the character-based LCD with a few segments. The TFT LCD is a popular display type for small-to-medium size applications.

A typical TFT LCD module will consist of a TFT LCD panel, a chip-on-glass (COG) driver IC, a backlight unit, and an interface Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC). The TFT driver ICs are highly integrated chips that will combine the source driver (in a 320 x 240 display, driving 320 x 3 = 960 sources of the transistors for supporting Red, Green and Blue), gate driver (driving the 240 gates of the transistors), timing control and sometimes other circuits such as memory, power or image processing. The FPC provides an interface connector to the MCUs. Figure 1-1 shows the Kentec320 x 240 display that is mounted on the DK-TM4C129X EVM board shown in Figure 1-2. The driver IC on the Kentec320x240x16 is a SSD2119.

GUID-20210607-CA0I-FXKW-S01F-B2VKGHSHJGZZ-low.jpg Figure 1-1 Kentec320x240x16 TFT LCD Display
GUID-20210607-CA0I-VPRT-QN6P-WFKZH0RGNQ6G-low.jpg Figure 1-2 DK-TM4C129x EVM Board

1.1 Typical Interfaces

Depending on the particular TFT panel size and resolution, some driver ICs may support multiple interfaces to communicate with the host controller. The interfaces are normally selectable on the module FPC or through firmware initialization.

  • SPI interface. This is the most simple and low pin-count interface which is normally reserved for character-based LCD or small TFT panels that require slow frame rate operation. Any MCU with a SPI interface can interact with the displays supporting this interface. The BOOSTXL-K350QVG-S1 BoosterPack is one such example that can interface with TI’s various LaunchPad's through the SPI interface.
    GUID-20210607-CA0I-DTPH-TPBG-CKHKFZSGDXTF-low.jpgFigure 1-3 SPI Interface to the Display Module
  • MPU interface. This is a parallel bus interface. This is normally the interface of choice when the display module contains an integrated display controller. For example, the Kentec320x240x16 QVGA Display has the built-in SSD2119 display controller IC. The MCU uses the parallel bus interface to write the frame buffer on the SSD2119 controller. There are two types of MPU interfaces – Motorola 6800 and Intel 8080. 8080 is a more popular interface than 6800. This interface consists 4/8/9/16 bits data, Chip-Select (CS) , Data/Instruction Select (RS), Read-Write (RD) and Write-Enable (WR). Figure 2-3 shows the signal mapping on TM4C129 MCU.
    GUID-20210607-CA0I-3LF3-HZ4P-VCX41D6FDWPT-low.jpgFigure 1-4 MPU Interface to the Display Module
  • RGB interface. This is a parallel bus interface that works for displays without a frame buffer. The MCU is responsible for updating the display by providing the timing signals (HSYNC, VSYNC, OE, CLK) and the RGB sub-pix data (16 bits, 18 bits, 24 bits).
    • In active TFT mode, the HSYNC (LCDLP signal) acts as a horizontal line clock. HSYNC toggles after all pixels in a horizontal line have been transmitted to the LCD and a programmable number of pixel clock wait states have elapsed both at the beginning and end of each line.
    • In active TFT mode, the VSYNC (LCDFP signal) is the vertical frame clock. VSYNC toggles after all lines in a frame have been transmitted to the LCD and a programmable number of line clock cycles has elapsed at the beginning and end of each frame.
    • In active TFT mode, the OE (LCDAC signal) acts as an output enable signal. It is used to signal the external LCD that the data is valid on the data bus.
    GUID-20210607-CA0I-XB3L-GB6V-JZGCHSGJ7RQS-low.jpgFigure 1-5 RGB Interface to the Display Glass

1.2 Frame Buffer

The LCD frame buffer is a contiguous memory block, storing enough data to fill a full LCD screen. The frame buffer contains the palette look-up table (palette RAM) and the frame data for a given source image. Operating in RGB Mode requires the LCD frame buffer. The LCD controller has the option to use the internal SRAM memory or external memory through the EPI interface to hold the frame buffer.

 

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