NXP RT1170 LCD DIsplay... WP Compressed
NXP RT1170 LCD DIsplay... WP Compressed
Contents
1 Introduction 1 Introduction............................................ 1
This application note describes how to use the MIPI DSI Host Controller and 2 MIPI DSI host controller......................... 1
LCDIFv2 Controller to drive a DSI-compliant LCD panel on i.MX RT1170. 2.1 DSI host controller
core................................ 1
The Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Display Serial Interface (DSI)
2.2 APB interface................4
controller is a flexible, high-performance digital core that provides a serial 2.3 DPI-2 interface host
interface that allows communication with MIPI DSI-compliant peripherals. bridge core..................... 4
Liquid Crystal Display Interface version 2 (LCDIFv2) is a display controller on 2.4 DSI D-PHY................... 5
i.MX RT1170. This block is a system master that fetches graphics stored in 2.5 DSI host clock...............6
memory and display them on a TFT LCD panel.
2.6 LCD display system......7
3 LCDIFv2 controller................................. 8
The demo code used as an example in this document is the sd_jpeg project
3.1 RGB interface............... 9
in the released SDK. The hardware environment is MIMXRT1170-EVK board. 3.2 LCDIFv2 signals......... 10
3.3 LCDIFv2 clock............ 11
2 MIPI DSI host controller 3.4 Video Mux controller...11
4 Run the demo...................................... 12
The MIPI DSI is a versatile, high-speed interface for LCD displays in 4.1 sd_jpeg demo............. 12
smartphones, automotive and other platforms. 4.2 LCD refresh rate......... 15
MIPI DSI controller of i.MX RT1170 implements all protocol functions defined 5 References.......................................... 16
in MIPI DSI specification and provides an interface that allows communication
between MCUs and MIPI DSI-compliant LCDs.
MIPI DSI D-PHY of i.MX RT1170 is a high-frequency and low-power physical layer supporting the MIPI Alliance standard for D-
PHY and provides physical implement for DSI.
MIPI DSI uses differential signals to transmit clock and data between DSI Host and display module, it includes one clock lane
and 1-4 data lanes. For DSI controller in i.MX RT1170, it can support one clock lane and up to two data lanes. Compared with
the parallel interface, DSI greatly reduces the number of data and signal line, which saves hardware resources.
DSI-compliant LCD support either of two basic modes of operation: command mode and video mode. Which mode is used
depends on the architecture and capabilities of the LCD.
Command mode refers to operation in which transactions primarily take the form of sending commands and data to a display
module. The display module may include local registers and a compressed or an uncompressed frame buffer.
Video mode refers to operation in which transfers from the host processor to the peripheral take the form of a real-time pixel
stream. Video information should only be transmitted using High-Speed mode. Figure 2 shows examples for command and video
modes.
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MIPI DSI host controller
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MIPI DSI host controller
D-PHY interface connects directly to MIPI PPI compliant D-PHYs, which will be introduced in details in DSI D-PHY.
DSI host controller core sends and receives DSI commands and data via packet interface. There are two packet-based interfaces:
APB interface and Display Pixel (DPI-2) interface.
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MIPI DSI host controller
DPI-2 interface is also called RGB interface. It uses VSYNC, HSYNC, DOTCLK and ENABLE signals to transmit data to LCD
panel.
D-PHY supports two transmission modes: high-speed mode and low-power mode.
High-speed mode is used for fast-data traffic. High speed data communication appears in bursts with an arbitrary number of
payload data bytes. In high-speed mode each Lane is terminated on both sides and driven by a low-swing, differential signal.
The range of data rate in high-speed mode is 80 Mbps to 1.5 Gbps per lane.
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MIPI DSI host controller
Low-power mode is used for control purposes. Optionally, Low-power escape mode can be used for low speed asynchronous
data communication. In low-power mode all wires are operated single-ended and non-terminated.
Table 1 details the interface signals for MIPI DSI D-PHY.
TxByteClkHS Clock High-speed mode transmit byte clock. It is recommended that all transmitting data
lane modules share on TxByteClkHS signal.
TxClkEsc Clock Low-power escape mode transmit clock. The period of this clock determines the
symbol time for low-power mode signals. The frequency range of TxClkEsc is 12
to 20 MHz.
RxClkEsc Clock Low-power escape mode clock for RX. The maximum frequency of RxClkEsc
should be 60 MHz.
Figure 6 shows the MIPI DSI D-PHY PLL block diagram. MIPI DSI D-PHY PLL is a high performance PLL based frequency
synthesizer that incorporates a lock detector, independent output divider, and supports power down modes. It is used for
generating high-speed mode transmit byte clock. The D-PHY PLL input clock is ref_clk and it ranges from 24 to 200 MHz. The
input divider has to be programmed such that the frequency after the input divider ranges from 24 till 30 MHz. The VCO maximum
output frequency is 1.5 GHz. The PLL output clock multiplies the ref_clk by CM/(CN × CO). High-Speed mode transmit byte
clock is equal to PLL output clock/8.
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MIPI DSI host controller
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LCDIFv2 controller
The color depth defines the number of colors in which a pixel can be drawn. It is represented in bits per pixel (bpp). For
a color depth of 24 bpp (which can also be represented by RGB888), a pixel can be represented in 16777216 colors.
— Refresh rate (in Hz)
The refresh rate is the number of times that the display panel is refreshed every second. The common refresh rate is
60 Hz, and a lower refresh rate may result in bad visual effects.
3 LCDIFv2 controller
i.MX RT1170 includes the enhanced Liquid Crystal Display Interface (eLCDIF) and the LCDIF Interface version 2 (LCDIFv2).
They are both display controllers used to fetch graphics stored in memory and display them on an LCD panel.
This chapter mainly introduces LCDIFv2 controller. LCDIFv2 includes following features:
• Support for RGB interface only.
• The display layers can support up to maximum eight layers of alpha blending.
• Support for one parallel camera interface input and typical data formats of CSI-2: 16 bpp (YUV422 8-bit), 24 bpp
(RGB888), 18 bpp (RGB666), 16 bpp (RGB565), 15 bpp (RGB555), 12 bpp (RGB444).
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LCDIFv2 controller
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LCDIFv2 controller
The RGB mode writes data at high speed to the LCD, and the display operation is synchronized with the VSYNC, HSYNC,
ENABLE and DOTCLK signals. Figure 10 shows the process of timing parameters for a full frame.
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LCDIFv2 controller
VSYNC OUT Vertical sync signal, indicating the beginning of a new frame.
HSYNC OUT Horizontal sync signal, indicating the beginning of a new line.
ENABLE OUT Data Enable. Indicates when there is valid pixel data.
It is usual that display panel interface includes other signals that are not part of the LCDIFv2 signals described in Table 3. These
additional signals are required for a display module to be fully functional. The LCDIFv2 controller can drive only signals
described in Table 3. The signals that are not part of the LCDIFv2 may be managed using GPIOs and other peripherals need
specific circuits. The display panels usually embed a backlight unit which requires an additional backlight control circuit and a
GPIO. Some display panels need I2C or SPI for touch panel.
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Run the demo
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Run the demo
Build, download, and run the demo on i.MX RT1170-EVK to drive a 720 × 1280 LCD panel. The LCD is connected to the board
via MIPI DSI interface. Then you can see pictures shown one by one on the panel, as shown in Figure 13 .
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Run the demo
Figure 13. i.MX RT1170-EVK board with 720 × 1280 LCD panel
In order to use LCDIFv2 controller and MIPI DSI controller to drive a DSI-complaint LCD panel, user application should perform
as following steps:
• Configure power, reset, and backlight GPIO signals for LCD.
• Configure the LCD timing parameters and signal polarity.
For example, sd_jpeg demo defines LCD resolution and timing parameters as below:
• Configure Video Mux register to make mux control between display controller and interface.
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Run the demo
CLOCK_EnableClock(kCLOCK_Video_Mux);
VIDEO_MUX->VID_MUX_CTRL.SET = VIDEO_MUX_VID_MUX_CTRL_MIPI_DSI_SEL_MASK;
• Calculate and configure the pixel clock, and RxClkEsc, TxClkEsc, DPHY reference clocks for MIPI DSI. The pixel clock is
equal to (height + VSW + VFP + VBP) * (width + HSW + HFP + HBP) * refresh rate.
Figure 14 shows the clocks used in sd_jpeg demo.
Detailed clock configurations of sd_jpeg demo for 720 × 1280 LCD are as below:
• Calculate and configure the DPHY high-speed bit clock, hs_bitclk = TxByteClkHS × 8. hs_bitclk is generated by DPHY PLL
using ref_clk and must be fast enough to send out the pixels to LCD panel, it should be larger than:
(pix_clk * bit per output pixel) / number of MIPI data lane
• Configure DSI module, DPHY module and DPI-2 interface.
• Configure TFT driver for LCD panel, for example, LCD panel used in this demo includes a TFT driver called RM68200.
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References
As a result, the largest frame rate of the 720 × 1280 LCD panel is about 84 Hz.
5 References
• i.MX RT1170 Processor Reference Manual (Rev. E, 12/2019)
• i.MX RT eLCDIF RGB Mode Use Case (document AN12302)
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