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Text LCD module

Welcome
Information

FPGA projects - Text LCD modules are cheap and easy to interface using a
Basic microcontroller or FPGA.

Music box Here's a 1 line x 16 characters module:

LED displays
Pong game

R/C servos

Text LCD module

Quadrature decoder

PWM and one-bit DAC

Debouncer
Crossing clock domains

The art of counting

External contributions

FPGA projects -
To control an LCD module, you need 11 IO pins to drive an 8-bits data
Interfaces bus and 3 control signals. The 3 control signals are:

RS-232 E: enable, or "LCD-select". Active high.

JTAG R/W: read/write. 0 to write, 1 to read.
RS: register select, 0 for command bytes, 1 for data bytes.
I2C

EPP Most of the LCD modules are based on the HD44780 chip or
compatible. One good information page is available here.
SPI
SD card 7 bits design
PCI
Let's drive the LCD module from an FPGA board.
PCI Express
Here's the block diagram of our design:
Ethernet

HDMI
SDRAM

FPGA j
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FPGA projects -

Pluto receives data from the PC serial port, de-serializes it, and send it
to the LCD module. The de-serializer is the same module from the
serial interface project, so it is just instantiated here.

module LCDmodule(clk, RxD, LCD_RS, LCD_RW, LCD_E,

LCD_DataBus);
input clk, RxD;
output LCD_RS, LCD_RW, LCD_E;
output [7:0] LCD_DataBus;

wire RxD_data_ready;
wire [7:0] RxD_data;
async_receiver deserializer(.clk(clk), .RxD(RxD),
.RxD_data_ready(RxD_data_ready), .RxD_data(RxD_data));

Every time a byte becomes available from the serial port, then
"RxD_data_ready" is active for one clock period.

The PC sends us data through the serial port in 8-bits mode. Ideally,
we would need to receive 9 bits from the PC, so that we can drive the
8-bits data bus and the "RS" line of the LCD module. For now, let's use
the MSB (bit 7) of the data received to drive "RS", and send only 7
bits to the data bus.

assign LCD_RS = RxD_data[7];

assign LCD_DataBus = {1'b0, RxD_data[6:0]}; // sends only 7
bits to the module, padded with a '0' in front to make 8 bits

assign LCD_RW = 0;

We never read from the LCD module, so the R/W line is tied to
ground.

The last complication is that the "E" signal needs to be active for a
long time, 220ns. That's long from the FPGA point of view, since I use
a 25MHz clock (40ns period). So "E" needs to be driven for at least
5.5 clocks. Here we drive it for 7 clocks, using a counter to count the
clocks.

reg [2:0] count;

always @(posedge clk) if(RxD_data_ready | (count!=0)) count
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<= count + 1;

The "E" signal is created using a register, so that it is guaranteed to be

glitch-free.

reg LCD_E;
always @(posedge clk) LCD_E <= (count!=0);

The waveform looks like that:

The HDL design is here.

The software
We initialize the LCD and send some data to be displayed.

Here's the C code to initialize the LCD module and display 'hello'.

void main()
{
OpenComm();

// initialize the LCD module

WriteCommByte(0x38); // "Function Set" in 8 bits mode
WriteCommByte(0x0F); // "Display ON" with cursors ON
WriteCommByte(0x01); // "Clear Display", can take up to
1.64ms, so the delay
Sleep(2);

// display "hello"
WriteCommByte('h' + 0x80);
WriteCommByte('e' + 0x80);
WriteCommByte('l' + 0x80);
WriteCommByte('l' + 0x80);
WriteCommByte('o' + 0x80);

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CloseComm();
}

The complete code is here.

To get more info about the HD44780 instruction set, check here.

8 bits design
The major drawback is the earlier design is that we send only 7 bits to
the LCD data bus. That is a problem because the set DD RAM Address
command of the LCD module cannot be used anymore.

One easy way around that is to use an escape character. We chose

character 0x00.

The new protocol is as follow:

To send a command byte, prefix it with 0x00.

To send a data byte, just send it, no prefix required.

The new C code is:

void main()
{
OpenComm();

// initialize the LCD module

WriteCommByte(0x00); WriteCommByte(0x38); // "Function
Set" in 8 bits mode
WriteCommByte(0x00); WriteCommByte(0x0F); // "Display ON"
with cursors ON
WriteCommByte(0x00); WriteCommByte(0x01); // "Clear
Display", can take up to 1.64ms, so the delay
Sleep(2);

WriteCommByte('h');
WriteCommByte('e');
WriteCommByte('l');
WriteCommByte('l');
WriteCommByte('o');

WriteCommByte(0x00); WriteCommByte(0xC0); // go on
second half of LCD
WriteCommByte('e');
WriteCommByte('v');
WriteCommByte('e');
WriteCommByte('r');
WriteCommByte('y');
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WriteCommByte('o');
WriteCommByte('n');
WriteCommByte('e');

CloseComm();
}

The new HDL code looks like:

module LCDmodule(clk, RxD, LCD_RS, LCD_RW, LCD_E,

LCD_DataBus);
input clk, RxD;
output LCD_RS, LCD_RW, LCD_E;
output [7:0] LCD_DataBus;

wire RxD_data_ready;
wire [7:0] RxD_data;
async_receiver deserialer(.clk(clk), .RxD(RxD),
.RxD_data_ready(RxD_data_ready), .RxD_data(RxD_data));

assign LCD_RW = 0;
assign LCD_DataBus = RxD_data;

wire Received_Escape = RxD_data_ready & (RxD_data==0);

wire Received_Data = RxD_data_ready & (RxD_data!=0);

reg [2:0] count;

always @(posedge clk) if(Received_Data | (count!=0)) count <=
count + 1;

// activate LCD_E for 6 clocks, so at 25MHz, that's 6x40ns=240ns

reg LCD_E;
always @(posedge clk)
if(LCD_E==0)
LCD_E <= Received_Data;
else
LCD_E <= (count!=6);

reg LCD_instruction;
always @(posedge clk)
if(LCD_instruction==0)
LCD_instruction <= Received_Escape;
else
LCD_instruction <= (count!=7);

assign LCD_RS = ~LCD_instruction;

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endmodule

The HD44780 specification shows that "RS" needs to be valid for 10ns
after "E" goes low. So you'll note that here "E" is driven for 6 clocks
only, and the "LCD_instruction" flag is reset only after clock 7, to give
25ns room.

That's all folks! Your turn to experiment.

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