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Custom LCD Case Study

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Custom LCD Case Studies

Below are Case Studies showing the benefits of Custom LCD solutions

Case Study 1

Design Requirement

To provide a small LCD character module inside a vending machine to provide a status read out for a service engineer. After analysis of space requirements, mechanical restraints and interface options, it was revealed that standard 1x8 or 2x8 character modules were simply too big and the customer's host processor could not drive the display module directly.

Custom LCD Solution

Going full custom allows for almost anything. As seen can be seen in the photos to the right, the PCB shape is not simply rectangular. There is a hole to fit around other mechanical parts. The actual size of the LCD is 30x10 mm and has 8 characters in 5x7 dot format. We even squeezed in an LED backlight for easier reading inside the machine.

The display driver/controller is a standard character LCD module controller, such as KS0066U or similar. To interface with the host processor and also store data for the engineer we added a small masked 8 bit micro controller. Included in the firmware is also a test program to test the entire unit before installation into the final application.

Due to space availability and cost, we used the already running COB bonding facility in the display factory. Customer is free issuing the micro controller in as a naked chip with the firmware masked. We did start the first pilot production up using OTP versions, but running 100k's the cost saving using a masked processor is significant.

Result

So what started as a request for a small standard character LCD module ended up in a more complex customized module, with added features which would not have been available with a traditional standard LCD display solution.

If you have any projects that may require a little more than just a customized display please contact RDS for a discussion about your project. It may turn out that adding more functionality to the display module will save cost and time in the total design.

Products | Display Products | Custom OLED and LCD Solutions |  Custom LCD Case Study