Spi in 9 bits data mode

NETMF & Gadgeteer
1

Hi,

I bough a color LCD shield (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9363) and I have a little problem to drive it: the spi needs a 9 bits data lenght. 8 or 16 bits data are available in the framework, but how to use 9 bits data? I’m using a panda II.

Do I need to program directly the registers of the microcontroler?

thank.

2

The .NETMF library only supports 8 or 16 bits. The Panda’s chip can do 8, 9 … 16 bits, but you would have to program the SPI (just a few lines) in RLP (i.e. Native mode). A nice exercise in RLP.
Take a look at the LPC2387 datasheet for the register S0SPCR (for SPI1).

3

thanks,

a nice exercise, sure 8)

4

GHI actually added a little trick to support 9bit particularly for this display. The way this display work with “byte and half” for even pixels and “half and byte” for odd pixels makes it horribly slow compared to other displays like this one http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/262
Also, the picture quality of this nokia display is very bad! For all these reasons we stopped supporting this display.

I highly recommend FEZ Touch if you own FEZ Panda II

5

ok, I understand. But it’s too late for me, I didn’t know these informations when I bough this display.

So I think I’ve just to configure the spi in 8 bits mode and then modifying the S0SPCR register to enable 9 bits data. Is it correct?

6

[quote]So I think I’ve just to configure the spi in 8 bits mode and then modifying the S0SPCR register to enable 9 bits data. Is it correct?
[/quote]

No that won’t work. The right way to do this is by writing RLP drivers specifically for your display. Which will make it run very fast.

7

[quote]The right way to do this is by writing RLP drivers specifically for your display. Which will make it run very fast.[/quote]sure, but it’s not a piece of cake to write driver without any debugging possibility.

What the best toolchain? I’ve fund yagarto and code sourcery.

8

I think we found the code we used for the nokia display. We will update and post on code-share in couple days http://code.tinyclr.com/

9

You could always buy another TFT - maybe faster and cheaper than struggling, although the RLP -route will help you later as well.
Yagarto will be fine. There are loads of code examples for peripherals at NXP

10

[quote]I think we found the code we used for the nokia display. We will update and post on code-share in couple days [/quote]Nice! Thanks

[quote]You could always buy another TFT - maybe faster and cheaper than struggling[/quote]you’re right, but I’ve bough 2 pieces.

Now, I’m trying to understand how to get and set registers with the register class. I wrote this code to take a look about the spi registers content:

namespace FEZ_Panda_II_LCD
{
    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            // Blink board LED
            bool ledState = false;
            OutputPort led = new OutputPort((Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.LED, ledState);
            SPI.Configuration MyConfig1 = new SPI.Configuration(
                (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di9,   // CS sur patte 9
                false,                          // SS actif bas
                0,                              // pas de setup time                                               
                0,                              // pas de hold time 
                true,                           // clock à 1 au repos
                true,                           // donnée valide sur front montant de l'horloge
                1000,                           // 1000 kHz 
                SPI.SPI_module.SPI1);           // SPI 1


            SPI MySPI1 = new SPI(MyConfig1);
 
            Register S0SPCR = new Register(0xE0020000);
            Register S0SPCCR = new Register(0xE002000C);
            Register SSP0CR0 = new Register(0xE0068000);
            Register SSP0CR1 = new Register(0xE0068004);
            Register SSP1CR0 = new Register(0xE0030000);
            Register SSP1CR1 = new Register(0xE0030004);
           

            while (true)
            {
                // Sleep for 500 milliseconds
                Thread.Sleep(500);

                Debug.Print("S0SPCR = " + S0SPCR.Read().ToString());
                Debug.Print("S0SPCCR = " + S0SPCCR.Read().ToString());
                Debug.Print("SSP0CR0 = " + SSP0CR0.Read().ToString());
                Debug.Print("SSP0CR1 = " + SSP0CR1.Read().ToString());
                Debug.Print("SSP1CR0 = " + SSP1CR0.Read().ToString());
                Debug.Print("SSP1CR1 = " + SSP1CR1.Read().ToString());
           }
        }

    }
}

the response is always 0. What is wrong in the code?

PS: sorry for my english

11

Do not bother using registers as it is not going to work well. Just wait couple days and we will give you the whole driver :slight_smile:

12

ok, it was just to pass time and understand how to access to registers in general.

13

any news about the driver Gus?

14

@ jack3

Ths driver was added to code.tinyclr.com

Is this what you were looking for?
http://code.tinyclr.com/project/304/color-lcd-shield/

15

thanks Robert,

but can you explain to me how the 3rd and 4th parameters can now configure le 9th bit mode of the spi?
The spi.configure documentation says that these parameters set the chip select setup and hold time.

16

I added more description to the page. This code is provided as reference only. This is a very bad display and we no longer support it, the code is there but you are on your own :slight_smile:

17

Sorry, but I still don’t understand the principle. How can we use the 3rd and 4th parameter to fix the length to 9 bits :-[

18

Just try the code, it should work. I am not sure how to explain this beside what I added to the code page!

19

They are abusing the chip select capabilities to send an additional high or low bit before transmitting the actual 8 bit.

20

Wouter was faster -