NovaVGA Shield Adds VGA Output to Arduino Boards

Arduino boards are convenient to control I/Os, link LEDs, and display info on small LCD displays, but if you want to output data to a larger monitor, it’s a bit more complex. NovaVGA shield for Arduino simplify the task of outputting data to a VGA monitor over SPI.

NovaVGA shield hardware specifications:

• CPLD – Xilinx XC9572XL CPLD, user programmable via JTAG interface.
• SRAM Framebuffer – 160×120 pixels @ 6-bit color (2^6 = 64 possible colors)
• VGA Output – 640×480 @ 60Hz physical resolution (25.175MHz pixel clock)
• Interface with MCU – SPI mode 1 interface (consumes only three Arduino pins)
• Header pins not included

MicroNova provides an Arduino library with various examples such as color palette, Mandelbrot, Tetris and text console, as well as a user’s guide and PDF schematics that can all be downloaded directly on the product page.

NovaVGA shield sells for $29 on Tindie or directly on MicroNova store. Note that it’s not the first board of this kind, as Olimex MOD-VGA, based on GameDuino design, has been available for several years.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

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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