So this morning I received an email about some seminar & workshop about LAPIS microcontroller, including a free ML62Q1622 evaluation board. OK, good. But wait. Who is LAPIS? I have certainly never seen any projects with Lapis MCUs, and probably have never heard of them. It turns out OKI SEMICONDUCTOR Co.,Ltd. established in 2008 from a spin-off of Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd, changed the company name in to LAPIS Semiconductor Co.,Ltd in 2011. LAPIS is also part of ROHM Semiconductor group.
Anyway, it was a good opportunity to find out more about ML62Q1622 micro-controller, and related evaluation boards & tools.
Lapis Semi ML62Q1622 is part of ML62Q1600 group of 16-bit microcontrollers whose block diagram is shown above.
ML62Q1622 MCU key features & specifications:
- CPU – 16-bit RISC CPU (CPU name: nX-U16/100) clocked @ up to 32 MHz
- Coprocessor for multiplication and division
- Program Memory – 64Kbyte
- Data Memory – 4Kbyte RAM
- Data flash – 2Kbyte
- Clocks
- Internal and external low speed clocks @ 32.768 KHz
- High speed clock – 32/24/1 6MHz PLL
- Internal watchdog timer clock @ ~1 kHz
- Peripherals
- Up to 53 GPIO’s
- 8x external interrupts
- DMA controller
- simplified RTC
- Timers
- UART & synchronous serial port
- I2C bus interface unit
- Buzzer output pin
- Voltage Level Supervisor(VSL)
- A/D converter, D/A converter , analog comparator
- LCD driver supporting 35seg×8com (com Max.), 40seg×3com (seg Max.)
- Safety features: RAM/SFR guard, automatic CRC calculation with data of program memory, RAM parity error detection, ROM unused area access reset, etc..
- Supply Voltage – 1.6 to 5.5 V
- Temperature Range – -40 to +105 °C
- Package 64-pin QFP64 or TQFP64
The ML62Q1600 group also has parts with 32KB or 48KB program memory, and 48-pin TQFP48 / 52-pin TQFP52 packages.
So it looks very much like a general purpose MCU, and the LCD driver makes it suitable to develop products with a small displays found in household appliances or industrial instruments.
The email I’ve received this morning is from a Thai company called Electronics Source, and they offer an ML62Q1622 board (see right) that cheap enough to giveaway in their 300 Baht ($9) full day seminar and workshop, or it might just be sponsored by Lapis since they’ll be present at the event.
But I could not find it anywhere, so instead I’ll have a look at LAPIS ML62Q1622 LCD Display type Starter kit and hardware & software tools used for development.
Kit content:
- Reference board for ML62Q1622 (64KB,64QFP)
- ML62Q1600 LCD board
- EASE1000 On-Chip debug emulator
- Development environment setup CD – U8/U16 Development Tools
- Starter kit CD – LED blinking sample program
- Accessories interface cable, USB cable
I could not find direct download link for the software tools, but they requirea Windows machine with either Windows 7 32-bit, Windows 8/8.1 32-bit, or Windows 10 32/64bit. The diagram below shows a bit more about the tools available and typical development cycle with LAPIS MCUs.
You’ll find more details on the microcontroller product page, as well as a dedicated page for ML62Q1000 series starter kits which also includes links to support pages and more details. Some of the resources appear to only be available in Japanese however.
LAPIS ML62Q1622 MCU costs around $3.15 in very small quantities, and around $2.30 for orders of 4,000 pieces. The starter kit with LCD display (SK-AD02-D62Q1622GA) sells for $379. So I’m not really surprised I have not heard about LAPIS microcontrollers in the maker community, as they are more targeted towards home appliances and industrial instruments. Are any of CNX Software readers using LAPIS microcontrollers at work?
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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$365 for a 16bit controller and u lcd seems quite expensive.