Thursday, March 28, 2024

What’s New in Displays for Embedded Systems

Various challenges, such as physical size and power consumption, have become more of a concern for embedded devices. This article presents some high-level solutions that are available to tackle the challenge -- PANKAJ V.

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Using the latest hot pluggable USB-based OLED development kits, you can drive OLED displays from the USB port of a PC. These are extremely easy to use yet powerful demonstration tools that do not require any extra cable or power supply to run, allowing displays to be up and running in minutes. A kit will provide you with a USB controller card, mini USB cable, an interchangeable OLED display card and a CD with software application and drivers. Also available are the display expansion boards and capes for various development board environments. Besides, some vendors provide customised solutions with kit modules to quickly interface the display module to your Raspberry Pi or Arduino-compatible board.

If you are working with E-Ink displays, there are easy-to-use PC USB powered kits based on open source software and tools. The latest EPD kits include pre-loaded firmware to take data via USB that are later sent over to the extension boards.

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Future: LED displays with high resolution
When we talk of LED displays, these are not true LEDs. These are LCD displays with LED backlights. Nate Srinath says, “Till date we haven’t perfected an LED display with very high resolution.”

We can increase features in TFT-LCD technology and make power-efficient designs, but we have to look for advancements in greener technologies like LED and OLED for the future. Previously it was possible to make only small OLED displays, but over time manufacturers have started making the process more efficient. They are now able to make larger displays, but still the cost-efficient yield of OLEDs has to be achieved.

Experts believe that true LED displays with high resolution can be more power-efficient with a high contrast and brightness coming as natural features. However, can we actually have high resolutions with true LED displays?

Nate Srinath, founder-director, Inxee says, “It is possible with manufacturing capability changes. Today we can’t manufacture an LED lamp smaller than a particular dimension. So we have to improve upon that and make smaller and smaller LEDs to hit extremely minute dimensions and be able to control them individually with good spectral characteristics. This will eventually lead to displays that will be very rugged and extremely modular. You can build your own giant flat-screen TV using smaller modules. Even if you throw water or stones on them, or break a pixel, it will continue to operate. Maybe 4-5 years down the road, we will be able to see such displays.”


The author is a technical journalist at EFY

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