Reading A Component's Data Sheet?

Using Arduino General Electronics
1

I got a bit confused as I was looking at the data sheet for a TFT LCD Display. There's a lot of stuff on here that a noob like me doesn't understand, so I had a few questions.

There is a column labeled "I/O", It has either an "I", "P", or "-" in the column. I assume the "I" means input, "P" means power, if an "O" were used that would be output, and "-" means the pin isn't used?

One of the pins is labeled Vcom, is listed as "I", and the function is "Common Voltage". What exactly is common voltage? I also am curious as what to common ground is? There is another pin that is assigned VGH that is called the Gate ON Voltage. What does that mean?

A symbol used is DVDD that is for power to the digital circuit, and labeled with a "P" in the "I/O" column. I'm curious as to how the symbol is read, and why they use subscript for the "DD" in the DVDD? Is it an acronym for something?

Pin 8 has a symbol called "MODE" assigned to it, and it allows you to select DE/SYNC mode select? What would the DE and SYNC mean? Likewise, Pin 10 & 11 have the VS (vertical sync) and HS (horizontal sync) assigned to them? What are they responsible for? It goes on further to explain that when "DE" mode is selected, VS & HS must pull high, and when "SYNC" is selected, DE must be grounded. What does it mean to have VS & HS "pull high", and why must DE be grounded?

At the end it talks about the "scanning mode". By 'scan' I assume it is describing the orientation of the LCD screen?

Pin 12 is assigned symbol "B7", and the function is said to be "Blue Data (MSB). Pins 13-18 all have the function "Blue data". The last pin in the blue data series is pin 19 which provides the function "Blue data(LSB)". Why does the first and last pin in the blue data series have "MSB" and "LSB" after them?

Pins 39 and 40 are assigned "L/R" that provides the function "Left/Right Selection", and "U/D" that provides the "Up/Down Selection". I assume since this is a touch screen that this sends the coordinates the user touches to arduino?

Pin 47 has the symbol "DITHB", and the function is described as the "Dithering Function". I have no idea what a dithering function is or what it does?

2

Hi.

Some (if not all) of the questions will be answered by asking Google.
Your question about dither will be taken care of by wikipedia, thanks Google.

MSB and LSB are short for Most Significant Bit and Least Significant Bit, that should be self explanatory.

Understanding a datasheet can be a pain.
A lot of it needs to be read in context, and you seemingly picked a few phrases or words and ripped them out of that context.
So how about pointing to the device you're talking about, and/or its datasheet?

3

Vdd and Vss mean "voltage drain drain", "voltage source source" originally and
refered to nMOS logic originally I believe where the +ve supply went to all the
drains, -ve rail to sources.

Nowadays with CMOS all the rails are connected to sources, but the Vdd for
+ve rail has persisted. Similarly Vcc was used in the days of TTL and is often
used.

DVdd and AVdd have been adopted to mean digital (logic) and analog supplies
respectively.

Many of the TFT datasheets are translated from Japanese or Chinese and can
be rather patchy in my experience.

4

MarkT:
Vdd and Vss mean "voltage drain drain", "voltage source source" originally

Not quite ...

Vdd and Vss mean "voltage supply for drains", "voltage supply for sources" - the repetition indicates a plural.