1.8 TFT LCD 160x128 RGB

Here’s a very cool TFT LCD display with 128 x 160 resolution and 18-bit color depth. The most unique feature of the screen is the ability to read back the display memory across the bi-directional data lines. This solves a big problem with most displays - the need for a lot of memory to create effects like transparency or overlapping windows. This is an ideal component to include in your next custom project to advance your embedded hardware/software skills.

The reason that we’re reselling this part rather than using it on a new product is because of a misunderstanding about the interface details. It uses a 3-wire SPI interface with 9-bit transfers. The first bit is used to indicate if the following byte is data or a command. While 9-bit transfers are supported by many modern microcontrollers (like the K66 or STM32 families), making that work with vanilla Arduino is unlikely to happen any time soon. Since SparkFun products need out-of-the-box support for Arduino the interface had to be restricted to bit-banging - just too slow for a display with this resolution!

So we’re handing off this cool part to people willing to stretch their comfort level and move beyond basic Arduino functionality. Using a modern microcontroller of your choice and taking advantage of 9-bit SPI transfers - or a full parallel bus - you can unlock the full power of this display. Not only are we giving this to you at the cost you’d expect from a manufacturer but we’re passing along some of the work we’ve done so far: You can find the mating FPC connector here and some SW/HW work in the documents tab.