Feather RP2040 with DVI support, HDMI output

An RP2040 Feather microcontroler with DVI video output

Imagine a microcontroler able to display graphics and images on an HDMI monitor or television. Adafruit designed this RP2040 Feather that has a digital video output (a.k.a DVI) that will work with any HDMI monitor or display. Notice it doesn't do audio over HDMI, just graphics!

It's kinda like grabbing a RP2040 Feather and DVI Breakout board and connect them together. You get all the benefits of the Feather : the Lipoly battery connector, USB C for power and data, the onboard NeoPixel, Flash storage of 8MB for code and files. The 8 unused pins are connected to the DVI output. The DVI can be used CircuitPython or with the PicoDVI library in Arduino or Pico SDK

Arduino IDE is the recommended environment for this product. Adafruit created a PicoDVI fork to create an internal framebuffer of 320x240 or 400x240 pixels in 16-bit color. The FrameBuffer  is continuously blitted out with each pixel doubled in size, DVI generates a video output of 640x480 or 800x480 oixels. Every draw in the framebuffer (internal memor) do instantly get displayed on the HDMI output.
Since the DVI library is a subclass of AdafruitGFX, every drawing function works as the GFX lib for TFT or OLED displays.

There's also DVI output support in CircuitPython as of 8.1.0b2 - but note that it uses a lot of memory so in particular if you want to add other hardware accessories and libraries, you may need to configure it to be a lower-memory monochrome display.

Note that the DVI video generation uses one full core, both PIOs, and 150K (320x240) or 190K (400x240) of SRAM. It's kinda maxed out so be aware of the remaining resource limitations.

We also connected the HDMI-connectors I2C pins to the SDA/SCL of the Feather (through a safe level shifter) so you can read the EDID EEPROM of displays, and have broken out the CEC and Utility pads. The Hot Plug Detect pin is also available on the very end of the 16-pin header. Read this pin to know when a display has been connected!

Technical details

• Microcontroler: RP2040 Dual Core ARM-Cortex M0+.
• Ressources: 1 Core + both PIOs + 150 Kio RAM for 320x240 px + 40 Kio RAM (when using 400x240px).
• Size: 53x23.3mm (Height: 7.7mm)
• Weight: 7.2gr