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Driving touchscreen LCD displays with TI microcontrollers

Gaurav Saxena
Prodigy 10 points

Hi all,

I want to interface a 1024x600 Touchscreen LCD display with a msp430. It is a task I have never worked at and the intent is to drive an array of images to the display under the control of the msp430. I am not able to gauge the processing bandwidth that would be required and if the msp430 would be able to support it ? Can you please let me know, based on your experience, if this is possible and if the msp is the right hardware to go for. I have read about using DMA mode for direct transfer of data between the Display and a data buffer. Would this be a good Idea ?

Also I am willing to try out using multiple msp430s if a single microcontroller is not sufficient and try and drive the display. Another option can be to use some other microcontroller like c2000 or Stellaris.

I am sorry if this seems like a very vague post but I am only a beginner and I need to start somewhere.

Thanks in Advance !

  • Guru 227245 points

    Even the biggest MSP has only 18k RAM and 256k flash.
    Even a b/w image of that screen size takes 75k.

    If the screen has an internal image ram with random access (so you can write individual pixels), it would be possible to 'draw' on it based on MSP commands.
    However, most LCDs simply require a full image passed line by line. I don't think the MSP would be of much use then. It can be used as touchscreen controller, providing touch information to a serially attached equipment (e.g. simulate a serial mouse based on the touch information). But for stuffing the screen with images, it's most liekly not the right choice. DMA won't help you much, as the data needs to be fetched from somewhere.

    Mos tlikely,. the screen wants RGB data, so a complete image is 1.8MB size. Since the MSP has only 1MB address range and no exernal address/data bus, you cannot attach a suitable amount of memory. The only way is serially attached external flash/FRAM/RAM, which is slow to access (as it needs a transfer protocol).

    Except for a few special applications (where such a big screen would be a waste of money anyway), you should rather go for a bigger processor like the Stellaris.

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