Hi,

I'm in search of type numbers of certain chips used in the Empeg. This is to gather information for an assignment on an embedded system, such as the Empeg.
I'm looking for type nr's of the following components:
the (flash) memory, the display controller (whole display unit actually), RS232, harddisk interfacing.

TIA, Arthur

The flash is an Intel TE28F800, the VFD display is a custom part, and the display controller, RS232 and hard disk controller are all provided by the Intel SA1100 processor.

Rob

I haven't read the chapter about the ARM's LCD controller thoroughly, but at this time I'm guessing the display part itself must have some sort of controller which accepts the data to be displayed (character, icon) and activates the appropriate pixels. I mean, something with registers to store data and commands, and a certain amount of RAM for a characterset.
I'm thinking/guessing the display functions the same as a DOT matrix LCD for example, or isn't it? Is it something completely different?

Grtz, Arthur

The VFD doesn't have any intelligence. We have a PIC and some discrete components that drive the display from the SA1100 LCD interface.

Rob

> I'm guessing the display part itself must have some sort of controller which
> accepts the data to be displayed (character, icon) and activates the appropriate pixels. I mean,
> something with registers to store data and commands, and a certain
> amount of RAM for a characterset.

The SA1100 LCD controller is designed to interface to commodity LCD panels of various types
(single panel STN, dual panel STN and TFT). This sort of interface is in many respects similar to
the interface between a video card and a monitor (except the LCD interface is digital not
analogue). The LCD has about the same amount of intelligence as basic video monitor; every
frame you send it all the pixels for that frame. It has no concept of a character set, it simply
displays the array of pixels that you send to it. It also has no local memory, you have to send data
for every frame at the correct frame rate (or you'll get flicker).

In the SA1100 you get a nice DMA function to do this all for you. Software just builds a framestore
in memory and sets the LCD controller going...

.Pete