EBV Elektronik has introduced its fifth reference design in the form of MercuryCode. The product combines a special board designed for industrial applications with a large number of useful software functions in one bundle. This platform is powered by the Cyclone III FPGA family using the Nios II soft microprocessor from Altera. All elements that require special drivers (Ethernet, CAN, special UARTs) have been implemented in the Cyclone III FPGA. As a result, the functions are available in the form of VHDL code and therefore cannot be discontinued. Even if production of the FPGA is discontinued once these ten years are up, the VHDL code can be easily migrated into the next generation so that only the hardware has to be redesigned, while the software, which is particularly difficult to develop, can continue being used 1:1.
MercuryCode allows graphic-capable TFT panels to be activated directly by LVDS signals from the FPGA with an XGA resolution (1024 x 768). The developers are free to select the colours as they please from the colour range of 218 colours. This means that company logos can be displayed true to life, while the interface with the graphic memory has to be 16-bits wide. Instead of making the board video-capable, the company also integrated a touch-screen controller onto the board. To permit efficient implementation of this interactive human-machine interface, EBV Elektronik provides direct support as well as a suitable development kit with a touch-sensitive TFT screen and a suitable inverter as well as a graphic library from Segger. This enables the developers to create a graphic model from which they then select the elements that they require via a touch-screen. EBV Elektronik makes a considerable time-to-market contribution and the users can save development time. The developers can also see at a very early stage that their hardware is working properly.
