The GUI should not be the last thing you think about when designing a product, but how do you make the most of your hardware when that’s already been decided? Embedded Wizard can give you a few pointers…
In ipXchange’s fourth partner interview that we have selected from our sponsored coverage of Ambiq’s presence at Embedded World 2024, Guy chats with Manuel from Embedded Wizard, another company that is responsible for some of the amazing GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) that you might see running on one of Ambiq’s Apollo MCUs.
With a background in embedded systems, as well as software and GUI solutions for televisions, Embedded Wizard has always been aware of the limitations of MCU-based systems and the GUIs possible when you are constrained by this level of processing capability and memory.
While a GUI may seem like simply a bunch of pixels on a display, the change in pixels and the interaction of objects on a screen can make all the difference to the user experience.
Manuel highlights a “triangle of tension” in creating the best GUIs, where the design requirements, the performance, and hardware limitations set what is possible. In order to get the most out of what you have, Embedded Wizard simplifies the software implementation of the GUIs as much as possible so that it runs as efficiently as possible.
As Manuel explains, you can save energy in the GUI by only drawing/rendering what you need to show on screen. If one object passes over another, for example, the covered object does not need to be processed until it reappears, thus energy is saved.
Ambiq’s power-efficient processing in both the hardware and software domains puts a new ceiling on what GUIs can be achieved in MCU-based builds, without sacrificing battery life!
The fact that Ambiq’s more recent MCUs have an inbuilt ultra-low-power 2.5D GPU did not come up in this conversation, so head to the board page below to learn more about what Ambiq’s latest MCU offers to design engineers looking to build lowest-power end products.
Funnily enough, the last of our Ambiq partner videos is all about that 2.5D GPU, so stay tuned for more.
Keep designing!
Wondering what other advantages Ambiq’s MCUs can offer? Check out ipXchange’s other Ambiq-related content from Embedded World 2024:
Apollo4 vs. Apollo5: Ambiq’s MCUs in (AI) action!
How Ambiq enabled the RAK11720’s added features