The PCF8578 is a low power CMOS1 LCD row and column driver, designed to drive dotmatrix graphic displays at multiplex rates of 1:8, 1:16, 1:24 or 1:32. The device has40 outputs, of which 24 are programmable and configurable for the following ratios ofrows/columns: 32¤8, 24¤16, 16¤24 or 8¤32. The PCF8578 can function as a stand-alone LCDcontroller and driver for use in small systems. For larger systems it can be used inconjunction with up to 32 PCF8579s for which it has been optimized. Together these twodevices form a general purpose LCD dot matrix driver chip set, capable of driving displaysof up to 40960 dots. The PCF8578 is compatible with most microcontrollers andcommunicates via a two-line bidirectional bus (I2C-bus). Communication overhead isminimized by a display RAM with auto-incremented addressing and display bankswitching.