Up to twenty (x20) times more power efficient than systems with a conventional display controller!
NEMA® | dc is not just an ordinary display controller, it is a real “Swiss Army Knife”!
NEMA® | dc is a powerful display controller which contains several smart tools and functionalities to compose multiple graphics and video layers by improving image quality and contributing significantly to the reduction of the SoC power consumption. NEMA® | dc supports powerful composition features, a wide range of display interfaces, and advanced proprietary frame-buffer compression technology.
The core is designed to lift the workload off the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) or the host processor (CPU), in GPU-less systems, and minimize the memory bandwidth. Multiple layers can be clipped, positioned and composed on the final display by overlaying video, subtitles, graphics, cursor or application windows, with or without transparency.
Additional information
Download NEMA® | dc Product BriefNEMA® | dc is designed as a flexible backend of the graphics-video path working perfectly in SoCs with GPUs or in tandem with the host CPU in GPU-less systems.
The possibility to choose from three different versions of NEMA® | dc makes it a perfect candidate to match the budget and suite applications spanning from high to mid-range smartphones (NEMA® | dc-400) down to battery-limited embedded systems with simpler graphics requirements (NEMA® | dc-100).
POWER SAVINGS
NEMA® | dc has three smart methods to reduce significantly the system power consumption:
- Think Silicon Frame-buffer compression (TSCTM): A high quality lossy and 4bpp or 6bpp (bits-per-pixel) fixed rate scheme, which performs in real-time and requires minimal hardware. TSCTM yields into a reduction of framebuffer size/traffic by 400-800%, depending on the color depth. The reduction of graphics memory size due to TSCTM enables systems using only internal on-chip memory by eliminating external DDR memory.
- Multi-layer Smart Surface Composer (MSSC): While composing on the-fly surfaces, NEMA® | dc lowers the system bandwidth by eliminating multiple memory read/write cycles and memory volume accesses, compared to a system where the GPU or CPU is entirely in charge of the composition process. MSSC yields into a reduction of system bus/memory load by 40-60%, depending on the number and the format of the surfaces.
- Screen Region Update: On selected output interfaces it allows partial updating of modified screen regions and not of the entire framebuffer.
ARCHITECTURE
NEMA® | dc is flexible and configurable while at compile-time allowing engineers to select the number of layers, functionality of composition modules and processing methods tailored to their requirements.
NEMA® | dc simplifies software integration and it supports multiple OS, such as FreeRTOS, Linux and Android. A fully documented bare metal library of primitive graphics functions is available for OS-less systems. The bare metal library, written in the form of an API, is portable (pure ANSI C with no dependencies) and comes together with application-notes describing how to program NEMA® | dc and enable its composition features.
PRE-Sales Tool: The software package comes together with NEMA® | dc-API and NEMA® PIX-Presso (non-commercial version), a utility software for converting images to/from formats suitable for low power embedded devices.
- FreeRTOS
- Bare metal Library (no OS)
- Linux
- Android
- Bare-Metal Library in portable ANSI C
- NEMA® | dc-API
- NEMA® PIX-Presso (non commercial version)
The integration of NEMA® | dc allows a SoC to drive full UltraHD displays, while operating at extremely low frequency. NEMA® | dc can compose a typical case of a four (4) layer user interface, providing a smooth and seamless layer transition experience. Composition and all animations are performed solely by the NEMA® | dc core by moving, filtering and blending the multiple videos and graphics framebuffer layers.
NEMA® | dc accelerating Windowed Layers
All animations, blending/scaling/filtering operations and scene composition are done entirely by the NEMA® | dc running @90MHz, with Zero CPU or GPU utilization.
NEMA® | dc accelerating Android-like GUI
All animations, blending/scaling/filtering operations and scene composition of four layers are done entirely by the NEMA® | dc running @90MHz, with Zero CPU or GPU utilization.
CORE FEATURES
- Programmable display resolutions up to 32Kx32K, including: VGA, XGA, HD, Full-HD, Quad Full-HD**, 4K**
- Multiple input graphics or video layers
- Compressed framebuffer support
- Powerful composition
- Alpha blending
- Programmable size, offset and format per layer
- Programmable stride/pitch enabling panning and clipping - Optional RGB to YUV/YCbCr conversion
- Per layer palette
- Global or per layer Gamma correction
- Configurable Dithering 15/16/18-bits for better results on displays
- Fixed cursor (16 x 16)
** Please check system requirements
DISPLAY INTERFACES
- MIPI DPI-2 (Display Pixel Interface) - Parallel RGB
- MIPI DBI-Type B (Display Bus Interface)
- Parallel YUV/YCbCr
- Serial formats 3-, 4- beat and two phase serial 12 bit RGB
- Programmable HSYNC, VSYNC, DE, pixel clock polarity
- 3 - 4 Wire SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) bus
- Dual SPI (Dual Serial Peripheral Interface) bus
- Quad SPI (Quad Serial Peripheral Interface) bus
- Serial / Parallel JDI (Japan Display Inc.) display
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
- DMA
- Scanline based
- Tile based (MIPI) - Layer Overlay
- Number of layers - Screen formatting (output encoding)
- Master Interface
- AMBA AHB 32bit
- AMBA AXI3/AXI4 32/64/128 bit - Slave Interface
- AMBA AHB
- AMBA AXI3/AXI4-Lite