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STM32 F4 rendering performance

leon23
Associate II
Posted on April 19, 2013 at 05:54

I'm working on a project use a F4 MCU. Its clock speed is 168MHZ. The resolution of my LCD is 320 * 480. After some testing, I got some figures. Rendering a full screen by direct accessing LCD controller by MCU can reach about 55ms. By DMA, the speed is about 70ms. I cannot use MCU approach because it just blocks the whole app. Has anyone done some similar bench mark? What's your figures? Is there any way to improve the performance. Any suggestions are appreciated.

4 REPLIES 4
jj2
Associate II
Posted on April 19, 2013 at 16:02

We share such interest.  Suspect further detail will assist:

a) please link to LCD's data sheet - interface & timing chart especially important.

b) Lcd controller briefly mentioned - is your quest to eliminate that controller - and output directly to the Lcd via the M4?   Data requirement for so pixel-intensive a display is far beyond capacity of MCU.  (assumes this is color TFT - using 16 bits/pixel or greater)

c) Sense that SSD1963 (TFT Cntlr) is ''best-bet'' for this Ap - its built-in frame buffer substantially reduces the load on the MCU.

d) Sourcing of 320x480 may not be easy - nor long-term - perhaps wise to check & multi-source... 

leon23
Associate II
Posted on April 22, 2013 at 02:56

We are using a ili9486. 

http://www.displayfuture.com/Display/datasheet/controller/ILI9486.pdf

.

The color is 16bit/pixel.

jj2
Associate II
Posted on April 23, 2013 at 02:52

Maddening!  Spent a good 20+ minutes composing in-depth reply - and it's lost!

Will try again tomorrow - thanks your response...

jj2
Associate II
Posted on April 24, 2013 at 02:46

Thanks for the data - helpful.  Three 320x480 TFTs are listed - hope that yours is the one w/suffix ST28 - others have much less contrast, narrower viewing angles and one has an earlier version of TFT Control IC.  Can you confirm that yours is ST28-F01?

That Control IC is most impressive - always better if it can be built into the display (either cog or cof).  Much detail in their thick manual - chip enables great flexibility.

To your issue: silent to this point are the over-all architecture of your display system.  We know of MCU and TFT - but memory must be provided to store the large image & other data.  With 153,600 pixels - it is critical that the fetches from this mass memory store be as efficient as possible. 

What is the size of your memory-MCU data path? (expect 16 bits - but 32 would be better)  Data should be stored in sequentially increasing memory addresses so that your inner transfer loop can be optimized.  Does both your fetch from memory - and then output from MCU to display - occur at your best calculated rate?  Have you checked to see if any bottlenecks occur (undesired slowing of this transfer process - possibly due to ''in the loop'' counter comparisons.)  In past designs - we've used a free GPIO pin to count the total number of transfers - and used this as the means to ''halt'' the transfer process.  (and this TFT controller provides no penalties for any ''extra'' writes - if I read the data sheet correctly)

Years back our group did some set-top box design - you may benefit from studying the methods video guys use to analyze any change in image - in the hope that such change (and the overhead it demands) can be lessened.

Have you experimented to see if any speed benefit results from row vs. column update?  Data sheet fails to detail - we've noted some variation in past chips - may prove worthwhile for you to run some experiments - and see.

Note futher that other firms manufacture such 320x480 - and use a different TFT control IC.  I'd expect that your bottleneck is more data fetch (between memory and MCU) and then transfer (MCU to TFT) - than that caused by the TFT Controller.  Is this your experience?  While you've given us the big picture ''55mS'' for a screen rendering - have you monitored and logged the time required by fetch, and then transfer to TFT.  What are these times?

Hope that something here proves of some value.  Suspect w/growth of smartphone market - newest version of this style/size TFT is a very good choice...