LC75711 VFD Driver for upto 16 Dot Matrix Characters,

Vacuum Fluorescent Displays (VFD) have been around for quite some time, but they are still popular. You will find them in audio and video equipment (eg DVD players), Point-Of-Sale stations, car displays etc. They are not cheap, unless produced in large numbers. However, they look good since they have nice bright colors and are readable in daylight. The best known types are the seven segment displays (e.g. alarmclock radios). These types can all display numbers 0-9 and some characters like A-F. The 14- or 16- segment 'starburst' displays are more suitable when you need more flexibility to display characters or symbols. The most optimal for showing characters is a dot matrix type display. This library interfaces to a Sanyo LC75711 VFD controller that supports upto 16 characters in 5x7 dot matrix representation. It has internal memory for all characters and will continuously output that data to the display. The device has a built-in character ROM and supports 8 user defined characters (UDC) as well. It supports dimming (brightness control) and blinking display. The LC75711 has upto 8 additional segments per display position (depending on number of active grids) for Icons, The device can be controlled by SPI bus. The Lib supports 'printf' type of output, Blink control and UDCs. Note that the LC75710, LC75711 and LC75712 are identical except for the built-in character ROM

Below is an example of the LC75711 library test software for the Aston Wamba DVB receiver frontpanel.

The general Notebook page for VFD devices of this family is here.