New for Microchip’s well established 32-bit PIC32 microcontroller range are a high-resolution 2D graphics controller and 32 Mbyte of SDRAM. The GPU is aimed at developers of embedded products wanting high-quality images and animations on displays up to 12 inch. Up to 24-bit colour is available in multiple input and output formats – with a global colour palette lookup table (CLUT) supporting 256 colours built in.
Three independent composition layers are available, and there is an integrated DMA controller to offload the CPU for clipping, rotation (90°, 180°, 270°) and transparency.

The underlying microcontroller architecture is the MIPS-based PIC32MZ – the graphics-enabled parts have been dubbed ‘PIC32MZ DA‘.
The 32-Mbyte of SDRAM is DDR2, and added to the microcontroller by die-stacking.

There are two hardware starter kits, one with stacked DRAM and one with a remote memory chip. Both have Ethernet, a Micro SD connector, SQI flash, USB and two Raspberry-Pi-compatible 20-way headers.

There is also ‘Multimedia expansion board II’, which has a 4.3-inch WQVGA screen with touch – enabled by maXTouch, a 24-bit stereo audio codec, VGA camera, 802.11 b/g wireless module, Bluetooth HCI transceiver, temperature sensor, microSD slot and analog accelerometer.