Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems (IPMS) has developed hardware and software to interface its OLED micro-displays to various input interfaces, calling the concept ‘Universal Display Data Converter’ or UDDC.

UDDC-for-Microdisplays-FraunhoferIPMS
WUXGA (1,920×1,200) OLED microdisplay stacked with the UDDC

The micro-displays are aimed at augmented and virtual reality headsets, and the interface is both a development tool and a design example.

“UDDC converts various standard video interfaces to a standard to drive various microdisplays, and offers system developers and integrators adaption to video sources which are already available in their systems,” according to the Fraunhofer.

UDDC for microdisplays FraunhoferIPMS blockThe developer version consists of a stack of three boards, one for power, one for video connector related circuits, and an FPGA-based processing board.

“The microdisplays developed at Fraunhofer IPMS can now easily utilise established video protocols from the industry, including D-PHY+DSI from the MIPI Alliance in the mobile device sector – developed in the BMBF-funded project ‘EdgeVision’ – and SMPTE SDI from the professional broadcasting area.

LVDS-based standards can also be handled, and micro-display options are WUXGA, 720p or 1,440 x 1080p.

“In the simplest case, only replacing a connector for the respective video interface is necessary,” said Fraunhofer IPMS system designer Florian Schuster. “Additionally, the overall system is only minimally larger than the microdisplay itself, making it easy to integrate into customer applications.”

The board is not quite universal admits the organisation: “In complex video protocols, additional video ICs may be necessary”, but the FPGA can be reprogrammed, so two of the board’s circuitry would remain unchanged.

In the development system, power is needed at 5 to 12V and configuration is over I2C.

See UDDC on the Fraunhofer stand at Electronica in Munich: Hall B4 stand B-141.