lcd module 16x2 pinout factory

16×2 LCD is named so because; it has 16 Columns and 2 Rows. There are a lot of combinations available like, 8×1, 8×2, 10×2, 16×1, etc. But the most used one is the 16*2 LCD, hence we are using it here.

All the above mentioned LCD display will have 16 Pins and the programming approach is also the same and hence the choice is left to you. Below is the Pinout and Pin Description of 16x2 LCD Module:

These black circles consist of an interface IC and its associated components to help us use this LCD with the MCU. Because our LCD is a 16*2 Dot matrix LCD and so it will have (16*2=32) 32 characters in total and each character will be made of 5*8 Pixel Dots.  A Single character with all its Pixels enabled is shown in the below picture.

So Now, we know that each character has (5*8=40) 40 Pixels and for 32 Characters we will have (32*40) 1280 Pixels. Further, the LCD should also be instructed about the Position of the Pixels.

It will be a hectic task to handle everything with the help of MCU, hence an Interface IC like HD44780 is used, which is mounted on LCD Module itself. The function of this IC is to get the Commands and Data from the MCU and process them to display meaningful information onto our LCD Screen.

The LCD can work in two different modes, namely the 4-bit mode and the 8-bit mode. In 4 bit mode we send the data nibble by nibble, first upper nibble and then lower nibble. For those of you who don’t know what a nibble is: a nibble is a group of four bits, so the lower four bits (D0-D3) of a byte form the lower nibble while the upper four bits (D4-D7) of a byte form the higher nibble. This enables us to send 8 bit data.

As said, the LCD itself consists of an Interface IC. The MCU can either read or write to this interface IC. Most of the times we will be just writing to the IC, since reading will make it more complex and such scenarios are very rare. Information like position of cursor, status completion interrupts etc. can be read if required, but it is out of the scope of this tutorial.

The Interface IC present in most of the LCD is HD44780U,in order to program our LCD we should learn the complete datasheet of the IC. The datasheet is given here.

There are some preset commands instructions in LCD, which we need to send to LCD through some microcontroller. Some important command instructions are given below:

We come across Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) displays everywhere around us. Computers, calculators, television sets, mobile phones, and digital watches use some kind of display to display the time.

An LCD screen is an electronic display module that uses liquid crystal to produce a visible image. The 16×2 LCD display is a very basic module commonly used in DIYs and circuits. The 16×2 translates a display of 16 characters per line in 2 such lines. In this LCD, each character is displayed in a 5×7 pixel matrix.

Contrast adjustment; the best way is to use a variable resistor such as a potentiometer. The output of the potentiometer is connected to this pin. Rotate the potentiometer knob forward and backward to adjust the LCD contrast.

A 16X2 LCD has two registers, namely, command and data. The register select is used to switch from one register to other. RS=0 for the command register, whereas RS=1 for the data register.

Command Register: The command register stores the command instructions given to the LCD. A command is an instruction given to an LCD to do a predefined task. Examples like:

Data Register: The data register stores the data to be displayed on the LCD. The data is the ASCII value of the character to be displayed on the LCD. When we send data to LCD, it goes to the data register and is processed there. When RS=1, the data register is selected.

Generating custom characters on LCD is not very hard. It requires knowledge about the custom-generated random access memory (CG-RAM) of the LCD and the LCD chip controller. Most LCDs contain a Hitachi HD4478 controller.

CG-RAM address starts from 0x40 (Hexadecimal) or 64 in decimal. We can generate custom characters at these addresses. Once we generate our characters at these addresses, we can print them by just sending commands to the LCD. Character addresses and printing commands are below.

LCD modules are very important in many Arduino-based embedded system designs to improve the user interface of the system. Interfacing with Arduino gives the programmer more freedom to customize the code easily. Any cost-effective Arduino board, a 16X2 character LCD display, jumper wires, and a breadboard are sufficient enough to build the circuit. The interfacing of Arduino to LCD display is below.

The combination of an LCD and Arduino yields several projects, the most simple one being LCD to display the LED brightness. All we need for this circuit is an LCD, Arduino, breadboard, a resistor, potentiometer, LED, and some jumper cables. The circuit connections are below.

16x2 LCD modules are very commonly used in most embedded projects, the reason being its cheap price, availability, programmer friendly and available educational resources.

16×2 LCD is named so because; it has 16 Columns and 2 Rows. There are a lot of combinations available like, 8×1, 8×2, 10×2, 16×1, etc. but the most used one is the 16×2 LCD. So, it will have (16×2=32) 32 characters in total and each character will be made of 5×8 Pixel Dots. A Single character with all its Pixels is shown in the below picture.

Now, we know that each character has (5×8=40) 40 Pixels and for 32 Characters we will have (32×40) 1280 Pixels. Further, the LCD should also be instructed about the Position of the Pixels. Hence it will be a hectic task to handle everything with the help of MCU, hence an Interface IC like HD44780is used, which is mounted on the backside of the LCD Module itself. The function of this IC is to get the Commands and Data from the MCU and process them to display meaningful information onto our LCD Screen. You can learn how to interface an LCD using the above mentioned links. If you are an advanced programmer and would like to create your own library for interfacing your Microcontroller with this LCD module then you have to understand the HD44780 IC working and commands which can be found its datasheet.

Lcd stands for liquid crystal display. Character and graphical lcd’s are most common among hobbyist and diy electronic circuit/project makers. Since their interface serial/parallel pins are defined so its easy to interface them with many microcontrollers. Many products we see in our daily life have lcd’s with them. They are used to show status of the product or provide interface for inputting or selecting some process. Washing machine, microwave,air conditioners and mat cleaners are few examples of products that have character or graphical lcd’s installed in them. In this tutorial i am going to discuss about the character lcd’s. How they work? their pin out and initialization commands etc.

​Character lcd’s come in many sizes 8×1, 8×2, 10×2, 16×1, 16×2, 16×4, 20×2, 20×4, 24×2, 30×2, 32×2, 40×2 etc .Many multinational companies like Philips, Hitachi, Panasonic make their own custom type of character lcd’s to be used in their products. All character lcd’s performs the same functions(display characters numbers special characters, ascii characters etc).Their programming is also same and they all have same 14 pins (0-13) or 16 pins (0 to 15).​

In an mxn lcd. M denotes number of columns and n represents number of rows. Like if the lcd is denoted by 16×2 it means it has 16 columns and 2 rows. Few examples are given below. 16×2, 8×1 and 8×2 lcd are shown in the picture below. Note the difference in the rows and columns.

On a character lcd a character is generated in a matrix of 5×8 or 5×7. Where 5 represents number of columns and 7/8 represent number of rows. Maximum size of the matrix is 5×8. You can not display character greater then 5×8 dimension matrix. Normally we display a character in 5×7 matrix and left the 8th row for the cursor. If we use the 8th row of the matrix for the character display, then their will be no room for cursor. The picture below shows the 5×8 dot matrix pixels arrangement.

To display character greater than this dimension you have to switch to graphical lcd’s. To learn about graphical lcds here is a good tutorialGraphical Lcd’s Working and Pin out.

The picture above shows the pin out of the character lcd. Almost all the character lcd’s are composed of the same pin out. Lcd’s with total pin count equal to 14 does not have back light control option. They might have back light always on or does not have a back light. 16 total pin count lcd’s have 2 extra A and K pins. A means anode and K cathode, use these pins to control the back light of lcd.

Character Lcd’s have a controller build in to them named HD44780. We actually talk with this controller in order to display character on the lcd screen. HD44780 must be properly handled and initialized before sending any data to it. HD44780 has some registers which are initialized and  manipulated for character displaying on the lcd. These registers are selected by the pins of character lcd.

When we send commands to lcd these commands go to Command register and are processed their.Commands with their full description are given in the picture below.When Rs=0 command register is selected.

When we select the register Rs(Command and Data) and set Rw(read –  write) and placed the raw value on 8-data lines, now its time to execute the instruction. By instruction i mean the 8-bit data or 8-bit command present on Data lines of lcd. For sending the final data/command present on the data lines we use this enable pin.Usually it remains en=0 and when we want to execute the instruction we make it high en=1 for some mills seconds. After this we again make it ground en=0.

To set lcd display sharpness use this pin. Best way is to use variable resistor such as potentiometer a variable current makes the character contrast sharp. Connect the output of the potentiometer to this pin. Rotate the potentiometer knob forward and backward to adjust the lcd contrast.

NOTE: we can not send an integer, float, long, double type data to lcd because lcd is designed to display a character only. Only the characters that are supported by the HD44780 controller. See the HD44780 data sheet to find out what characters can we display on lcd.  The 8 data pins on lcd carries only  Ascii 8-bit code of the character to lcd. How ever we can convert our data in character type array and send one by one our data to lcd. Data can be sent using lcd in 8-bit or 4-bit mode. If 4-bit mode is used, two nibbles of data (First high four bits and then low four bits) are sent to complete a full eight-bit transfer. 8-bit mode is best used when speed is required in an application and at least ten I/O pins are available. 4-bit mode requires a minimum of seven bits. In 4-bit mode, only the top 4 data pins (4-7) are used.

Command 0x30 means we are setting 8-bit mode lcd having 1 line and we are initializing it to be 5×7 character display.Now this 5×7 is some thing which every one should know what it stands for. usually the characters are displayed on lcd in 5×8 matrices form. where 5 is total number of columns and is number of rows.Thus the above 0x30 command initializes the lcd to display character in 5 columns and 7 rows the last row we usually leave for our cursor to move or blink etc.

NOTE:You can send commands in hexadecimal or decimal form which one do you like the result is same because the microcontroller translate the command in 8-bit binary value and sends it to the lcd.

Character Lcd’s can be used in 4-bit and 8-bit mode.Before you send commands and data to your lcd. Lcd must first be initialized. This initialization is very important for lcd that are made by Hitachibecause they use HD44780 driver chip sets. Hd44780 Chip set  first has to be initialized before using it. If you don’t initialize it properly you will see nothing on your lcd.

In 4-bit mode the high nibble is sent first before the low nibble and the En pin is toggled eachtime four bits is sent to the LCD. To initialize in 4-bit mode:

To learn more about the difference between 4-bit and 8-bit character lcd mode and operation with demo example visit the tutorial link given below. Demo examples are very easy to understand and one can make changes easily in the code. Please also give us your feed back on the post.

Previous examples connect the white LED backlight to power. The following example is specifically for those using an LCD with a RGB LED backlight. The only difference between the connection is the LED"s backlight on pins 15-18.

ERC1602SBS-4 is 16 characters wide,2 row cog(chip on glass,no board) character lcd module,compact size,metal pin connection,ST7032i controller,i2c+4-wire serial interface,single led backlight with white color included can be dimmed easily with a resistor or PWM,stn blue-lcd negative,white text on the blue color,high contrast,wide operating temperature range,wide view angle,rohs compliant,built in character set supports English/Japanese text,see the ST7032i datasheet for the full character set.

Winstar WH1602B is one of the most popular character LCD display module 16x2 types in the market. WH1602B 16x2 LCD display model is built in with ST7066 controller IC or equivalent; its default interface is 6800 4/8-bit parallel. The model no. WH1602B1 is having 4 line SPI interface, as to the part no. WH1602B3 is having I2C interface.

Winstar 16x2 Character LCD Display WH1602W is having two pinout interfaces on upper and bottom sides of the LCD module. This 16x2 lcd display has the outline size of 80.0 x 36.0 mm and VA size of 66.0 x 16.0 mm and the maximum thickness is 13.2 mm. WH1602W 16x2 LCD Displays are built-in controller ST7066 or equivalent. It is optional for + 5.0 V or + 3.0 V power supply. The LEDs can be driven by pin 1, pin 2, or pin 15 pin 16 or A/K. This type of module can be operating at temperatures from -20℃ to +70℃; its storage temperatures range from -30℃ to +80℃.

Arduino LCD Display Modules are mostly used in embedded projects, because of its affordability and availability. The 16×2 Display LCD Module represents 16 Columns and 2 Rows. There are so many other combinations like 8×1, 8×2, 10×2, 16×1 and so on. However, 16 x 2 display LCD is most commonly used.

Arduino 16×2 LCD Display Module has 16 characters by a 2-line LCD display screen with an I2C interface. It displays 2 lines of 16 characters, white characters are displayed on a blue background.

This I2C 16×2 Arduino LCD Display Module uses the I2C communication interface. This means that we can use 4 pins for the display that is: VCC, GND, SDA, SCL. Thus, it gives us the advantage of saving 4 digital / analog pins on Arduino.

Nowadays, we always use the devices which are made up of LCDs such as CD players, DVD players, digital watches, computers, etc. These are commonly used in the screen industries to replace the utilization of CRTs. Cathode Ray Tubes use huge power when compared with LCDs, and CRTs heavier as well as bigger. These devices are thinner as well power consumption is extremely less. The LCD 16×2 working principle is, it blocks the light rather than dissipate. This article discusses an overview of LCD 16X2, pin configuration and its working.

The term LCD stands for liquid crystal display. It is one kind of electronic display module used in an extensive range of applications like various circuits & devices like mobile phones, calculators, computers, TV sets, etc. These displays are mainly preferred for multi-segment light-emitting diodes and seven segments. The main benefits of using this module are inexpensive; simply programmable, animations, and there are no limitations for displaying custom characters, special and even animations, etc.

A 16×2 LCD has two registers like data register and command register. The RS (register select) is mainly used to change from one register to another. When the register set is ‘0’, then it is known as command register. Similarly, when the register set is ‘1’, then it is known as data register.

The main function of the data register is to store the information which is to be exhibited on the LCD screen. Here, the ASCII value of the character is the information which is to be exhibited on the screen of LCD. Whenever we send the information to LCD, it transmits to the data register, and then the process will be starting there. When register set =1, then the data register will be selected.

Thus, this is all about LCD 16×2 datasheet, which includes what is a 16X2 LCD, pin configuration, working principle, and its applications. The main advantages of this LCD device include power consumption is less and low cost. The main disadvantages of this LCD device include it occupies a large area, slow devices and also lifespan of these devices will be reduced due to direct current. So these LCDs use AC supply with less than 500Hz frequency. Here is a question for you, what are the applications of LCD?