Electronics > Microcontrollers

Microcontroller vs fpga

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odell:
Hi
I working on a  project using a 7in lcd. I was going to use a pic 32 but I saw a video on fpga. what is better and easyer

Psi:
Does your 7" LCD have a built in controller with its own memory and API?  If so you can talk to it with a micro just fine.
But if it's a raw screen then you will need something with a bit more power to keep up with the LCD clock rates and a FPGA could definitely do that if needed.

But typically you only use a FPGA over a MCU when you have a need for one.

odell:
here is the lcd I'm looking at
http://www.ebay.com/itm/STM32-Dev-Board-7-TFT-LCD-Module-1GB-TF-Card-/190459966375?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c584c73a7

Psi:
That's got its own STM32F103VET6 ARM microcontroller plus a SSD1963 LCD Controller.
The dev board datasheet URL doesn't work for me so I'm not sure if the ARM micro on that board comes pre-programmed with a graphics API for external access or not.
If it does then you could use an external AVR/PIC to easily draw stuff on the lcd using serial API calls to the ARM.

However, if the ARM is blank then you will have to write your code into the ARM itself.
Doing that will be more work as you will have to read through the SSD1963 LCD Controller datasheet and write your own ARM LCD driver code to talk to the lcd controller IC. You would also need a JTAG programmer to work with the ARM chip.

olsenn:
You definately don't NEED an fpga for this task, but they are great and can be used instead of the onboard ARM CPU and controller. Your call.

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