The PCF8578 is a low power CMOS1 LCD row and column driver, designed to drive dot
matrix graphic displays at multiplex rates of 1:8, 1:16, 1:24 or 1:32. The device has
40 outputs, of which 24 are programmable and configurable for the following ratios of
rows/columns: 32¤8, 24¤16, 16¤24 or 8¤32. The PCF8578 can function as a stand-alone LCD
controller and driver for use in small systems. For larger systems it can be used in
conjunction with up to 32 PCF8579s for which it has been optimized. Together these two
devices form a general purpose LCD dot matrix driver chip set, capable of driving displays
of up to 40960 dots. The PCF8578 is compatible with most microcontrollers and
communicates via a two-line bidirectional bus (I2C-bus). Communication overhead is
minimized by a display RAM with auto-incremented addressing and display bank
switching.