OLEDs have self-emitting light and do not require backlights.
PROs: LCD displays are thicker and heavier than OLED displays and consume more power than OLEDs, due to the need for a backlight. Limited to around 50-degree viewing angle.Ĭan be made fairly transparent so that a see-through display is possible.īacklighting precludes a transparent display.įlexible, curved displays possible. Ranges from very affordable to expensive, but a display of the same size is less expensive than OLED. Small OLED displays are somewhat affordable. Size being the same, OLED is more expensive. Up to a 50% loss in brightness can occur over a lifespan of 10 – 50 years, depending on manufacturer and hours of use per day.ĭo not lose brightness unless the (LED/CCFL) backlight fails. Improving with the maturation of the technology. Burn-in)īurn-in is possible, but rare according to OLED maker LG. Only as black as the backlighting allows. LCD ParameterĮxtremely fast, up to 1,000 times faster than LCD (On the order of 0.01ms) See Table 1 for comparison of OLED and LCD to make the best choice for your design. Small OLED displays have become fairly affordable and make sense if you have a strict power budget. Some MCUs use SPI or I2C to drive an LCD or OLED display.
According to the Arduino site, which offers LiquidCrystal software libraries, the Hitachi HD44780 driver has a 16-pin interface.
Expect to use several pins for data and power for the backlight that should be included with a segment-driven display.
Sometimes off-brand hardware display drivers will be compatible with other display drivers that are already in wide use so you can still use the software library for the compatible driver. Find the software library that matches the hardware that drives the LCD display. Several MCUs include a software library for operating LCD displays, which will be driver-specific. Controlling a display with an MCU is relatively easy if the display is a simple segment-driven (e.g., text-only), monochrome display. Many microcontrollers have built-in circuitry for display drivers so that the MCU can directly control the display or segments in a display. (Source: OLED Display Fundamentals and Applications, Takatoshi Tsujimura) An LCD has many more components than OLED displays. An LCD has many more components than OLED displays, and for example might include a light guide panel and a diffuser to evenly disperse the light emitted from the backlight across the whole screen, liquid crystal shutters that switch the light on and off throughout the display, polarizing film and other components to drive the LCD shutters and reflect the backlight (although manufacturing components and techniques may vary). The term “LED display” actually refers to an LCD display with LED backlighting, and thus is the same thing as an “LCD Display.” Another display option is the Organic Light-Emitting Device (OLED), which emits light in a manner similar to LEDs and therefore does not require a separate backlight.
A Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) is a common, low-cost option that uses a backlight made of either cold-cathode fluorescent tubes (CCFL) or light emitting Diodes (LEDs). Microcontrollers (MCUs) have a few display options available.