ePaper Display Demo Kit Overview

This demo kit provides a hand held low power battery operated device promoting Pervasive Displays Inc. 1.44 inch electronic paper display.  This demo kit also highlights Microchips’ PIC24 family microprocessor with USB host and device functionality, wireless connectivity, user graphical interface.  Linear Technology provides battery management and system power. The external connector exposes the 12 processor pins to allow for custom development.  This kit incorporates Pervasisve Displays  low power, sunlight readable high resolution display with a 180 degree viewing angle.  This kit also provides connectivity through Microchip’s low power wireless module, Bluetooth low energy, USB and uart communication provided by the external 15 pin connector.  Depending on local wireless requirements by selecting an appropriate demo kit will operate in the approved 863-870MHz, 902-928 MHz or 2.4 GHz spectrum.  The USB provides host connectivity to external  memory devices and printers.  Lithium-ion rechargeable battery management is achieved by using Linear Technology charger and coulomb counting gas gauge solution.  There are three push buttons for navigating the graphical user interface.   Also included is a low power 32 kHz clock for real time clock calendar functionality.   This demo kit is feature rich and provides the developer a great project head start.

Central to the design is the PIC24FJ256GB106 and implements the USB, file I/O, graphics and MiWi software libraries.   The firmware utilizes Microchip’s latest application library v2015_05_15.  The design utilizes a state-machine cooperative multitasking approach to handle the graphic display interface, file I/O, USB events and radio communications.  

Hardware Features

This demo kit is marketed to engineers and provides turnkey solution for end applications.  This kit gives shortens the engineering development time and cost associated with embedded applications.  Microchip has example code that could be ported over and reused.   The kit provides the following features:

• Pervasive Displays ePaper display
• Low energy Bluetooth and  IEEE 802.15.4™ Wireless connectivity
• USB Host and device modes
• Lithium Ion battery management that includes charger and gas gauge
• Low power clock calendar
• Three button user interface
• Off the shelf IP54 enclosure
• Low power long battery life

Applications