General description
The PCF8536 is a peripheral device which interfaces to almost any Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)1 with low multiplex rates. It generates the drive signals for any multiplexed LCD containing up to eight backplanes, up to 44 segments, and up to 320 elements. The PCF8536 is compatible with most microcontrollers and communicates via the two-line bidirectional I2C-bus (PCF8536AT) or a three line unidirectional SPI-bus (PCF8536BT). Communication overheads are minimized using a display RAM with auto-incremented addressing.

FEATUREs and benefits
Single-chip 320 segment LCD controller and driver with 6 channel PWM generator
6 channel PWM generator for backlight LED illumination
Selectable display bias configuration
Wide range for digital power supply: from 1.8 V to 5.5 V
Wide LCD supply range: from 2.5 V for low threshold LCDs and up to 9.0 V for high threshold twisted nematic LCDs
Low power consumption
Selectable backplane drive configuration: 4, 6, or 8 backplane multiplexing
LCD and logic supplies may be separated
320-bit RAM for display data storage
6 PWM outputs with a 7-bit resolution (128 steps) and drivers for external transistors
Programmable PWM frame frequency to avoid LCD backlight flickering
400 kHz I2C-bus interface (PCF8536AT)
5 MHz SPI-bus interface (PCF8536BT)
Programmable frame frequency in the range of 60 Hz to 300 Hz in steps of approximately 10 Hz; factory calibrated
320 segments driven allowing:
  up to 40 7-segment alphanumeric characters
  up to 20 14-segment alphanumeric characters
  any graphics of up to 320 elements
Manufactured insilicon gate CMOS process

APPLICATIONs
White goods and consumer products