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Issue #209 December 2007
SD Card Display Controller
Honorable Mention Luminary Micro DesignStellaris2006 contest
by Sylvain Davaine
Start | System Overview | SD Memory Cards | Hardware | SHT11 Sensor | FAT File System | Graphic Files | Library | Host | Ideas | Sources & PDF
IDEAS
The principle used in this project is an original way of inputting data to portable devices (e.g., mobile phones), and it could be used to enhance their capabilities or display other types of measurements, not necessarily in the form of graphics (see Figure 2).
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| Figure 2—This is an example application of the system with an RS-232 serial link, an OBD2 automotive CAN link, and so on. |
The microcontroller could simply write text or binary files that a program on the host would read. This is especially true with devices not designed with I/O capabilities. For example, my mobile phone could run Java software and get serial or GPIB debug data from a failing test bench terminal when I am visiting a customer (see Photo 6).
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| Photo 6—The system can be plugged into and run in the RSMMC socket of a mobile phone. It can be used to input data from the outside world onto the phone. The use of the Luminary evaluation kit makes the PCB as big as the mobile! It could be greatly reduced with a custom PCB. |
This project is more of a proof-of-concept; it is not really viable as a real product. I read the SDMC specifications and learned that the SDMC association already had a similar idea, the SDIO. The SDIO uses an SD interface to connect anything other than flash memory on it (e.g., a GPS, a camera, etc). Of course, the SDIO host needs to run specific software, a driver for the particular SDIO device that is connected. There are not a lot of devices using this interface, but that is an idea for a future design contest!
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