Oslo, Norway, 11 July, 2012 – Designers working with Energy Micro’s EFM32 Gecko microcontrollers (MCUs) can now employ the emWin high-quality graphical software library from SEGGER to quickly and cost-effectively configure graphical user interfaces for products ranging from portable health and fitness monitors to smart accessories.
emWin delivers flicker-free animation, optimized drawing routines supporting anti-aliasing, and a GUI builder for window objects (widgets). By integrating emWin within its Simplicity Studio design environment, Energy Micro, the energy friendly microcontroller and radio company, allows designers to make immediate use of the efficient, autonomous on-chip TFT and LCD controller that is a feature of the EFM32 Gecko series of MCUs.
“Incorporating a low-power display controller on-chip gives designers unrivalled flexibility in HMI and display options for low-energy applications, especially for users of our large memory Giant and Leopard Gecko processors,” said Andreas Koller, VP Sales and Marketing at Energy Micro. “Working closely with SEGGER provides first-class software support for these features, allowing users to produce high-quality graphics results quickly and without license agreement concerns.”
emWin supports a wide range of graphics features including a unique font converter and unicode language support, color management and graphical layering. Compatible with single-task and multitask environments, proprietary operating systems or with any commercial RTOS, emWin can adapt to displays of any physical or virtual size.
The direct drive TFT controller within the EFM32 Giant and Leopard Gecko MCUs allows full-rate (60fps QVGA/30fps HVGA) video output from external memory while the CPU remains in an energy-saving deep sleep mode. It supports up to 16-bit color and displays without an internal frame buffer, and offers functions such as scrolling, alpha blending and bit masking. EFM32 microcontrollers with an LCD driver can directly drive segment displays with a current consumption of just a few hundred nanoamps.
Watch an emWin demonstration of the EFM32 Giant Gecko’s TFT direct drive capabilities here:http://youtu.be/2FCg-lutDwU
Energy Micro’s low-energy products are aimed at fast-growing market areas such as smart metering, building automation, security systems, portable health and fitness equipment and smart accessories. The company’s Gecko 32-bit microcontroller portfolio consists of more than 240 variants based on the ARM Cortex-M processors, and includes Gecko technology benchmarked to consume just a quarter of the energy of competing 8-, 16- and 32-bit MCUs.
