OLED Front Panel Driver

● I²C slave operating at 100kHz or 400kHz

Basic Operation
The control chip on an OLED-mini Front Panel Module is a self-contained microcontroller
accessible as an I²C slave. This chip handles operation of the rotary encoder and push-button, piezo
sounder, and GPIO header on the board.
The chip responds to wheel rotation and press events, and can autonomously drive the piezo
sounder to make a beep sound when these occur, independently of the host MCU.
An 8-level FIFO of events is maintained, which reports input events on the rotary encoder or
changes in state of the GPIO lines. Whenever this FIFO is non-empty, the INT output line is pulled
low. When the FIFO is emptied, the INT line is returned to hi-Z state.

I²C Operation
The control chip is accessed via a standard I²C bus, which can operate at 100kHz or 400kHz. The
1MHz "fast mode" is not supported. The slave address is fixed at 0x3D (0x7A write, 0x7B read).
The chip makes use of SCL clock stretching to insert delays on the bus when it requires extra time
to respond, so needs a bus master that can accept this. If any bus isolation or multiplexing is used,
that too will need to support SCL clock stretching by slaves.
The chip operates as a simple register-based slave, containing a set of individually-numbered
registers. Each register may be read or written to (though some registers are notionally read-only,
and attempts to write will be ignored).

Register Writes
Registers may be written to in a single WRITE transaction, consisting of a START condition, slave-
addressing byte, register address, value, and STOP condition.
START

ACK

ACK

ACK
STOP

Slave (W) Addr Value

Master sends the slave Master sends a register Master sends the new
writing address; 0x7A number - see the section value for the register
below
Register Reads
Registers may be read from in a single WRITE-then-READ transaction, consisting of a START,
slave-addressing byte, register address, repeated START, another slave-addressing byte, reading the
value, STOP.
START

ACK

ACK
RE-START

ACK

ACK
STOP
Slave (W) Addr Slave (R) Value

Master sends the Master sends a Master sends the Slave sends the
slave writing register number slave reading current value of
address; 0x7A - see the section address; 0x7B the register
below

Detailed Register List

Direction: R
Default value: 0x00

Implements an 8-level deep FIFO of input events. Each event is formed of a single byte. The top
three bits of the event classify it into a category, the remaining bits are specific to that category.

0b000xxxxx No event
0b00000000 / 0x00
0b001xxxxx Wheel rotation:
lower bits give the wheel direction
0b00100001 / 0x21 - wheel downwards (anticlockwise)
0b00100010 / 0x22 - wheel upwards (clockwise)
0b010xxxxx Button:
lowest bit gives the button press/release state
0b01000000 / 0x40 - wheel button release
0b01000001 / 0x41 - wheel button press
0b011xxxxx GPIO state change:
lower 4 bits give the GPIO line state at the time the event occurred
0b01100000 / 0x60 to
0b00101111 / 0x6F - GPIO state captured
When an input event occurs, the INT line will be pulled low. Reading from this register will clear
the event from the queue, causing the next to appear. If there are no more events waiting, the
register will read as zero and the INT line will be returned to high impedance state.
RELEASEMASK
Address: 0x02

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0x00

Controls whether buttons will send event reports on release as well as press (bits set to 1), or on
press only (bits set to 0).

0b.......x Ignored
0b......x. Wheel button

KEYBEEP_DURATION
Address: 0x10

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0x0A / 10

Gives the duration in centiseconds for an autonomous keybeep.

KEYBEEP_MASK
Address: 0x11

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0x00

Controls which button events cause an autonomous keybeep.

0b.......x Wheel rotation

BEEP_DURATION
Address: 0x12

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0x00

Writing a non-zero value into this register will immediately cause a beep of the given duration, in
centiseconds. Reading the value will give a current countdown of the remaining time for the
ongoing beep.

BEEP_TONE
Address: 0x13

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0xC8 / 200
Sets the frequency of the beep tone, in units of 10 Hz. The default value of 200 sets a tone of
2 kHz, which is ideal for the piezo sounder being used. Note that altering this value will also change
the tone used by the autonomous keybeep.

GPIO_DIR
Address: 0x30

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0x00

Sets the drive direction on each of the GPIO lines. Bits set low (0) are inputs; set high (1) are
outputs. The lower four bits are used; the upper four are ignored.

GPIO_IO
Address: 0x31

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0x00

Writes to this register set the output state for any GPIO lines currently set as outputs. The state of
pins set as inputs is ignored. The lower four bits are used; the upper four are ignored.
Reads from this register return the current state of all four GPIO lines, regardless of drive state.

GPIO_PULLUP
Address: 0x32

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0x00

Enables pullup resistors on any of the GPIO lines with bits set high (1). This pullup is about
50kohm; sufficient to hold a high state around a button or similar input. The lower four bits are
used; the upper four are ignored.

GPIO_EVENTMASK
Address: 0x33

Direction: R/W
Default value: 0x00

Sets a mask used for level change event detection on the GPIO lines. A change of state on any lines
which are set as inputs and have the mask bit high (1) will be reported as a GPIO event into the
event FIFO. This event will capture the current value of all four lines at the time the level changed.
Possible Future Expansions
The operation of the control chip is defined by re-flashable firmware which can be programmed via
the main IO pin header on the OLED panel board itself. The following possible ideas may be
implemented in a future update:
● Timer to detect long press of buttons, allowing offload of that from the host MCU too
● Use of (a fixed) 3 GPIO lines for SPI transfer, allowing offload of frontpanel LEDs via
74'595 chains or similar