Human productivity is increasingly dependent on interaction between persons and equipment. Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) enable workers to work with a piece of automation equipment via an interface rather than switches and levers. HMI is the convergence of visual computing and automation control systems. Industrial automation HMI systems usually consist of LCD panels, often with touch screen capability, mounted on the control consoles of industrial automation equipment.
Manufacturers of Industrial automation HMI systems face challenges of creating scalable HMI product families with varying performance levels, scalable graphics resolutions and different display types. They also needed common platforms that reduce time-to-market for new model introductions while planning for 10-year product life cycles common to industrial markets.
- Typical application requirements include:
- HMI family to be scaled from 200MHz up to 1GHz processor
- Scalable graphic resolution from QVGA(320x240) up to UXGA (1600x1200)
- Integrated Touch Screen Controller for analog resistive touch screens
- Video Layers architecture, Alpha Blending and PIP (Picture In Picture) support
- BITBLT acceleration functions
- Video Input capability
- Support for Real-Time Industrial Ethernet, Serial and CAN bus communication ports
ASIC and ASSP available in the market do not offer the flexibility and scalability needed. SoC manufacturers often do not design chips with integrated peripherals specifically matching industrial product requirements and standards, thus limiting the designers’ choices with regard to memory, display and industrial communications ports. Furthermore, ASSP and SoC for graphics are mostly designed for mobile applications, and do no assure the 10-year product life cycle required in the industrial market.
Through LCD-Pro, Lattice offers manufacturers of industrial automation HMI systems a ready-made industry standard AMBA bus architecture and predefined library of graphics IP cores in a single FPGA. Since LCD-Pro can interface to multiple external processors, system designers can use different CPUs without having to redesign the system architecture to achieve scalability. They are also able to retain the same peripherals and same software drivers for different CPU types
Programmable video controller IP in LCD-Pro enables design of products for different LCD panels from different LCD manufacturers.
LCD-Pro enables system architects to define their HMI architecture only once while being able to scale it to entire product families, employing different microcontrollers, CPUs and LCD panels suitable for each application.
Available IP and the ability to use a single HMI architecture speed up time-to-market and provide significant savings on development costs.
Simpler design enables speedy new product introductions by adapting to emerging industrial market requirements without having to redesign platforms.
Optional industrial communications IP available for LCD-Pro enables connectivity to multiple industrial communications protocols.