I want to control an LCD (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8335) using the LPC1768 Cortex-M3.
What do I need to program the ARM?
Will all I need are: the Yagarto toolchain, and a JTAG programmer/debugger (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/275)
I plan to create a pcb for this using EagleCAD.
Judging by the level of your question I recommend that you learn to walk before you start to run. If I were you I’d start with something like Embedded Artists’ LPC1768 LPCXpresso Board
http://www.embeddedartists.com/products … 68_xpr.php
and use any of the pre-configured development tools recommended for use with the board you choose. At the risk of stating the obvious, confirm first that whatever board you use has sufficient capabilities to interface with that display.
Once you have your code thoroughly tested and working then is the time to start designing your own board.
cfb:
Judging by the level of your question I recommend that you learn to walk before you start to run. If I were you I’d start with something like Embedded Artists’ LPC1768 LPCXpresso Boardhttp://www.embeddedartists.com/products … 68_xpr.php
and use any of the pre-configured development tools recommended for use with the board you choose. At the risk of stating the obvious, confirm first that whatever board you use has sufficient capabilities to interface with that display.
Once you have your code thoroughly tested and working then is the time to start designing your own board.
Thanks for the reply.
I’ve created my own PCBs through BatchPCB but nothing really complicated.
I was wondering if they had ARM chips in a DIP package but couldn’t find any that’s why I was planning on creating a very simple programming/development board.
The LPC1768 LPCXpresso Board looks like a bargain. Unfortunately, it currently seems out of stock.
Plenty (180+) in stock here [http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSea ... 68-5101-ND](http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=568-5101-ND) - the LPC1769 version is out of stock though.nonfiction:
…The LPC1768 LPCXpresso Board looks like a bargain. Unfortunately, it currently seems out of stock.
The '1768 will not be able to drive that display, at least not directly.
The LCD requires a 24-bit RGB drive (8-bits each for R, G and B along with HSYNC, VSYNC etc.) There are members of the ARM family that have such LCD controllers built in (e.g. ARM7TDMI-based LPC2478) or which at least have an external memory controller (e.g. LPC2378, another ARM7) which would make parallel interfacing to an LCD driver chip (e.g. Solomon Systech SSD1961) possible. I haven’t checked to see if there’s a Cortex from NXP that has an LCD controller and/or an EMC…
If you used something like an SSD2128, you could interface to it from the '1768 serially using the SPI. Whether or not this would result in a fast enough update rate (i.e. what are you displaying, how fast does it need to update etc etc) only you can say.
im actually making a board for my 16bit LCD… which is well 16bit data and about 11 other pins. I made the design in EAGLE… the board has 2 595 converters and all other VDD,VSS and boost converter on board. The result is a 10pin header to control 27 pin LCD… 3 pins are power… meaning VDD,VSS and BL control…
If you are interested in having a look at the simple schematic just ask…
While it’s not an LPC1786 you might be interested in taking a look at Energymicro’s EFM32 chips. They’re ARM Cortex-M3 based but they have a lot of power saving features if you plan to run on batteries.
The dev kits they have are very cool and can be used as programmers/debuggers for your own board.
The downside is most of their chips are in a non-standard QFN package, ie the QFN32 is 6mm x 6mm instead of 5mm x 5mm, so you’ll have to draw up a custom part. The exception being some are offered in a QFP100 and the top ones are BGA112. They’re suppose to be releasing more QFP versions soon though.
I’m using one for a BEAMish self powered robot with a bit of Wolfram’s simple rules principles thrown in for fun, and another in a class project for a distributed meshed sensor network measuring water temperature in a lake. I’m going to try to make a small linear generator to power it from the bobbing motion in the water, but they should run well over a year or two on a battery.
Though why I initially mentioned it is the starter kit they sell has an LCD on it so you can code it and then use the board to program yours when you get it made.