4D Systems announced it has partnered with MikroElektronika, a producer and retailer of hardware and software tools for developing embedded systems, to introduce the 4D-display click, an adapter board with a mikroBUS interface that connects to any of 4D Systems’ gen4 series of intelligent display modules. Suitable for use with any of the growing number of microcontroller development boards that incorporate MikroElektronika’s 8-pin mikroBUS interface,such as the Microchip Curiosity board or those from MikroElektronika, the 4D-display click significantly simplifies the integration complexity of adding a display to a host.

This approach not only eases the application design process but also does not impose any processing load onto the host MCU, this being handled by the 4D Systems display module. In this way, a full color touch control display can be added to virtually any design that has a mikroBUS interface. Most notable is that a display can be interfaced to a slower, less resource-capable device such as an 8-bit microcontroller, without the need for the designer having to over specify the microcontroller used in the application purely to accommodate a display.

The gen4 series of intelligent displays integrate a 4D System’s Diablo graphics processor and communicate with the host MCU over a UART interface. Elaborate graphic touchscreen interfaces can be quickly designed using the 4D Systems Workshop 4 IDE. For the host development, the 4D-display click board is supported within the MikroElektronika mikroSDK, allowing for the rapid addition of a display to a design using preconfigured settings with mikroC, mikroBasic and mikroPascal compilers. The board will also be supported within Microchip’s MPLABS integrated programming environment and Atmel START.

The 4D-display click adapter board measures 42.9 x 25.4 mm and features a 30-pin ZIF FFC socket for the display connection and a 2-pole SMD terminal block for connecting an external power supply in situations that warrant a separate supply. A jumper is used to switch between the external power source and power from the mikroBUS^TM connector. The 4D-display click will be available to purchase at $9 for a single unit from MikroElektronika and all its major distributors.