EVE
EVE is short for Embedded Video
Engine. EVE represents an IC that is
part of the FTDI FT800 family of
video engines. EVE technology
integrates display, audio, and touch
into a single IC. As you might
imagine, wading through the EVE
technical documentation is akin to
attempting to eat an elephant.
This isn’t the first time we have
dined on elephant during a Design
Cycle discussion. From experience,
we know that to consume the entire
elephant we must take our time and
eat it in small pieces.
The FT800 is represented as a
series of logical units in Figure 1.
Note that the FT800 contains all of
the necessary logic to interface
directly to the LCD panel. All we as
users have to do is provide power, a
microcontroller with an SPI or I2C
microcontroller interface, a spare
GPIO for the PD# (power down)
input, and an external interrupt pin to
support the FT800’s INT# pin. To the
microcontroller, an FT800 looks like a
memory-mapped device attached to
its SPI or I2C portal.
I have chosen to work with a
prepackaged EVE solution that
includes a 5.0 inch LCD panel
attached to a printed circuit board
(PCB) that fully supports the FT800.
The FT800 development environment
we will be using is readily available to
Graphic displays are an
integral part of our lives.
Sophisticated touch-enabled
graphical displays are
standing in for bank tellers,
airline agents, and corporate
human resource personnel,
just to name a few.
In the old days, it took a
bunch of processing power
to pass information via a
GUI (Graphical User
Interface). In this installment
of the Design Cycle, we will
explore what it takes to
drive a touch-enabled
graphical display using a
simple microcontroller.
THE DESIGN CYCLE
The Dawn of a New EVE
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■ BY FRED EADY
68 June 2014
■ Figure 1. The FT800 is a very complex IC. Fortunately, the FT800's complexity is tamed by an easy-to-use object-oriented programming model. If the host microcontroller can speak SPI or I2C, it can drive the FT800.
