LCD and Seven Segment Disply Interfacing with 8051 Micro Controller

Seven Segment Disply Interfacing with 8051

LCD Interfacing

This section describes the operation modes of LCDs, then describes how to program and interface an LCD to an 8051 using Assembly and C.

LCD operation:

In recent years the LCD is finding widespread use replacing LEDs (seven-segment LEDs or other multisegment LEDs). This is due to the following reasons:

The declining prices of LCDs.

The ability to display numbers, characters, and graphics. This is in contrast to LEDs, which are limited to numbers and a few characters.

Incorporation of a refreshing controller into the LCD, thereby relieving the CPU of the task of refreshing the LCD. In contrast, the LED must be refreshed by the CPU (or in some other way) to keep displaying the data.

Ease of programming for characters and graphics.

LCD pin descriptions

The LCD discussed in this section has 14 pins. The function of each pin is given in Table 5-1. Figure 5.6 shows the pin positions for various LCDs.

^VCC> ^VSS> ^{and V}EE

While Vcc and Vss provide +5V and ground, respectively, VEE is used for controlling LCD contrast.

RS, register select

There are two very important registers inside the LCD. The RS pin is used for their selection as follows. If RS = 0, the instruction command code register is selected, allowing the user to send a command such as clear display, cursor at home, etc. If RS = 1 the data register is selected, allowing the user to send data to be displayed on the LCD.

R/W, read/write

R/W input allows the user to write information to the LCD or read information from it. R/W = 1 when reading; R/W = 0 when writing.

E, enable

The enable pin is used by the LCD to latch information presented to its data pins. When data is supplied to data pins, a high-to-low pulse must be applied to this pin in order for the LCD to latch in the data present at the data pins. This pulse must be a minimum of 450 ns wide.

DO-D7

The 8-bit data pins, DO - D7, are used to send information to the LCD or read the contents of the LCD's internal registers. To display letters and numbers, we send ASCII codes for the letters A - Z, a - z, and numbers 0 - 9 to these pins while making RS = 1.

There are also instruction command codes that can be sent to the LCD to clear the display or force the cursor to the home position or blink the cursor. Table 12-2 lists the instruction command codes. We also use RS = 0 to check the busy flag bit to see if the LCD is ready to receive information. The busy flag is D7 and can be read when R/W = 1 and RS = 0, as follows: if R/W= 1, RS = 0. When D7 = 1 (busy flag = 1), the LCD is busy taking care of internal operations and will not accept any new information. When D7 = 0, the LCD is ready to receive new information. Note: It is recommended to check the busy flag before writing any data to the LCD.

Sending commands and data to LCDs with a time delay

Program 5.1: Communicating with LCD using a delay

To send any of the commands from Figure 5.6 to the LCD, make pin RS = 0. For data, make RS = 1. Then send a high-to-low pulse to the E pin to enable the internal latch of the LCD. This is shown in Program 5-1. See Figure 5.7 for LCD connections.

Program 5.2 Sending code or data to the LCD with checking busy flag

The above code showed how to send commands to the LCD without checking the busy flag. Notice that we must put a long delay between issuing data or commands to the LCD. However, a much better way is to monitor the busy flag before issuing a command or data to the LCD. This is shown in Program 5.3.

Program 5.3: Communicating with LCD using the busy flag

Figure 5.8. LCD Timing for Read ( L-to-H for E line)

Notice in the above program that the busy flag is D7 of the command register. To read the command register we make R/W = 1 and RS = 0, and a L-to-H pulse for the E pin will provide us the command register. After reading the command register, if bit D7 (the busy flag) is high, the LCD is busy and no information (command or data) should be issued to it. Only when D7 = 0 can we send data or commands to the LCD. Notice in this method that no time delays are used since we are checking the busy flag before issuing commands or data to the LCD.

Contrast the Read and Write timing for the LCD in Figures 5.8 and 5.9. Note that the E line is negative-edge triggered for the write while it is positive-edge triggered for the read.

Figure 5.9. LCD Timing for Write (H-to-L for E line)

LCD data sheet

In the LCD, one can put data at any location. The following shows address locations and how they are accessed.

where AAAAAAA = 0000000 to 0100111 for line 1 and AAAAAAA - 1000000 to 1100111 for line 2. See Table 12-3.

Table 5.3 LCD Addressing

The upper address range can go as high as 0100111 for the 40-charac-ter-wide LCD, while for the 20-character-wide LCD it goes up to 010011 (19 decimal = 10011 binary). Notice that the upper range 0100111 (binary) = 39 decimal, which corresponds to locations 0 to 39 for the LCDs of 40x2 size.

From the above discussion we can get the addresses of cursor positions for various sizes of LCDs. See Figure 12-5 for the cursor addresses for common types of LCDs. Note that all the addresses are in hex. Table 12-4 provides a detailed list of LCD commands and instructions. Table 12-2 is extracted from this table.

Figure 5.10  Cursor Addresses for Some LCDs