Implementing dual-screen anomaly display application on ARM Cortex-A8 core processor and Android operating system

As the combination of ARM Cotex-A8 and Android becomes more and more powerful, its trend of penetrating from the field of consumer electronics such as smart mobile terminals such as smartphones and tablets to all walks of life is becoming more and more obvious. However, due to the design of chip architecture and operating system framework, only some applications of synchronous dual screens can be realized on the Android platform, such as the display application based on smartphones or the projector application based on tablets as shown in the following figure:

In such applications, the large screen is mainly used as an extension of the small screen. Its purpose is to enlarge the visible area of ​​the video or display interface so as to provide a better viewing experience or allow more people to see the content on the small screen. The UI interface and content interface of the operation are displayed on different screens at the same time. Professionally, it can be called synchronous dual display or dual-screen same-image technology. For processors or operating systems with weaker performance, due to the resolution limitation of the large screen and the differentiation of video formats, in order to achieve smooth and clear synchronous dual display, a lot of effort must be put into system design. Even so, there will be many unsatisfactory aspects. For ARM core chips, when its core reaches the Cotex-A8 level and the GPU reaches the 1080P level, it is relatively easy to achieve synchronous dual display with a very good user experience. At present, it has basically become the standard configuration of high-end smartphones or tablets.

As the mobile world penetrates the enterprise field, we often find the following cases in the real world:

Figure 3: At an industrial site, an industrial LCD screen is used for human-computer interaction, and another large screen displays real-time surveillance video on the assembly line. At the same time, this surveillance is compressed by the embedded processor and transmitted to the server computer in the central control room through a wireless or wired network.

Figure 4: Subway coupon advertising machine: The middle screen is used as the human-computer interaction interface for printing coupons and group purchase inquiries, while the large screen above is always playing advertisements.

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Figure 5: Medical smart terminal: Doctors use a small operating screen to interactively enter data, while a large screen on the patient or device side displays the collected data curve.

Figure 6: Asynchronous multi-screen display of car entertainment. The screen in the driver's seat serves as GPS navigation and the main operating interface, while the screen in the back seat plays advertisements or movies for passenger entertainment.

In the above-mentioned traditional multi-screen solutions for displaying different contents, most of them use industrial motherboards with X86 architecture, expand several graphics cards, or require multiple PC-like architecture products to achieve the above functions. If the ARM architecture solution can be adopted, the benefits are obvious. The low power consumption and high and low temperature properties of the ARM chip for the industrial industry, coupled with its lightweight and portable characteristics, greatly expand the scope of product deployment and activities. At the same time, the cost is also reduced by more than half compared with the solution using PC architecture.

However, implementing the dual-screen heterogeneous image solution on an ARM-based processor requires a high level of technical accumulation, and sufficient experience in multi-channel display interfaces, chip and system design of different display devices is required. At the same time, a clear understanding and research of the chip layer, hardware layer, kernel layer, display framework layer, and operating system framework layer are required. If combined with multi-channel asynchronous audio and multi-channel asynchronous video input, the entire architecture becomes more complex, far beyond the capabilities of current mobile smart terminals. Therefore, there is currently no mature standard interface and business case for implementing dual-screen heterogeneous images under Android.

Freescale's iMX53 chip is the most mature and advanced ARM processor for the industrial automotive field. Chenhan Electronics has implemented asynchronous dual-screen or dual-screen anomaly display technology on it. This technology has been successfully applied in harsh environments and rich applications such as in-vehicle and outdoor advertising.

In this technology, Chenhan Electronics has developed a patented bottom-up dual-screen anomaly framework based on in-depth research on the display characteristics of the i.MX53 application processor and the Android display unit framework, providing application developers with a standard dual-screen anomaly development interface. The main screen and the secondary screen can be switched at will, and any Android application can be implemented on the main screen. The secondary screen can display multiple layers of content, and can overlay text, pictures, videos and other display information, and can divide the display area. Different layers can be mixed with alpha transparency, which fully meets the needs of industrial applications and greatly reduces the technical threshold for realizing the above industrial applications.

An important feature of this technology is that the software interface it provides to dual-screen anomaly application developers is seamlessly compatible with the native Android application development interface. Application developers can use the original classes and APIs in the Android SDK to output display content on the secondary screen. And like ordinary Android application development, they can use the Java language to develop dual-screen anomaly applications. Developers can become proficient in using them in a very short time, and development is very convenient.

There is no doubt that in the current and long-term future, in the war between CPU and OS, ARM and Android, starting from mobile devices, will continue to erode the traditional industrial embedded position of Wintel Alliance with their huge mobility advantages. A new era of industrial Internet will eventually appear before human eyes. The realization of high-performance dual-screen anomaly technology provides a new imagination space for expanding various subdivided application fields.

In the above-mentioned traditional multi-screen solutions for displaying different contents, most of them use industrial motherboards with X86 architecture, expand several graphics cards, or require multiple PC-like architecture products to achieve the above functions. If the ARM architecture solution can be adopted, the benefits are obvious. The low power consumption and high and low temperature properties of the ARM chip for the industrial industry, coupled with its lightweight and portable characteristics, greatly expand the scope of product deployment and activities. At the same time, the cost is also reduced by more than half compared with the solution using PC architecture.

However, implementing the dual-screen heterogeneous image solution on an ARM-based processor requires a high level of technical accumulation, and sufficient experience in multi-channel display interfaces, chip and system design of different display devices is required. At the same time, a clear understanding and research of the chip layer, hardware layer, kernel layer, display framework layer, and operating system framework layer are required. If combined with multi-channel asynchronous audio and multi-channel asynchronous video input, the entire architecture becomes more complex, far beyond the capabilities of current mobile smart terminals. Therefore, there is currently no mature standard interface and business case for implementing dual-screen heterogeneous images under Android.

Freescale's iMX53 chip is the most mature and advanced ARM processor for the industrial automotive field. Chenhan Electronics has implemented asynchronous dual-screen or dual-screen anomaly display technology on it. This technology has been successfully applied in harsh environments and rich applications such as in-vehicle and outdoor advertising.

In this technology, Chenhan Electronics has developed a patented bottom-up dual-screen anomaly framework based on in-depth research on the display characteristics of the i.MX53 application processor and the Android display unit framework, providing application developers with a standard dual-screen anomaly development interface. The main screen and the secondary screen can be switched at will, and any Android application can be implemented on the main screen. The secondary screen can display multiple layers of content, and can overlay text, pictures, videos and other display information, and can divide the display area. Different layers can be mixed with alpha transparency, which fully meets the needs of industrial applications and greatly reduces the technical threshold for realizing the above industrial applications.

An important feature of this technology is that the software interface it provides to dual-screen anomaly application developers is seamlessly compatible with the native Android application development interface. Application developers can use the original classes and APIs in the Android SDK to output display content on the secondary screen. And like ordinary Android application development, they can use the Java language to develop dual-screen anomaly applications. Developers can become proficient in using them in a very short time, and development is very convenient.

There is no doubt that in the current and long term future, in the war between CPU and OS, ARM and Android, starting from mobile devices, will continue to erode the traditional industrial embedded position of Wintel Alliance with their huge mobility advantages. A new era of industrial Internet will eventually appear before human eyes. The realization of high-performance dual-screen anomaly technology provides a new imagination space for expanding various segmented application fields.