Character and Graphic LCD’s are supplied with an on-board Controller Driver (C/D). This is sometimes referred to as an IC (Integrated Circuit).Epson and Sunplus.
There are different manufactures of controller drivers such as Sitronix.
The Controller/Driver has the following functions:
- RAM
- This is the memory that is built into the controller driver that drives the LCD Module. Also called on-board memory
- Character Generator
- This is a library that converts the customer’s data to letter, numbers and punctuation marks. This is built into the C/D
- The character generator is different for each language.
- Segment Driver
- The same chip that contains the controller can also drive the segments located on the LCD.
- If you need to drive additional segments beyond the capability of the Controller/Driver chip, you can add an additional driver chip.
Each LCD requires only one Controller/Driver chip. Depending on the number of segments that need to be driven (aka displays) additional driver chips may be required.
The black circular area on the back of the displays and pictured below, is the area where the controller is housed on the dislay.
