JP2001282225A - Character display controller and its manufacturing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a character display controller, its manufacturing method, a display character information storage ROM and electronic equipment which can be manufactured under the specifications that are unified for all language blocks at low cost. SOLUTION: The character display controller 10 includes a first nonvolatile memory 20 which stores the compressed data of display character information of a plurality of language blocks and header information required to read compressed data related to a given language block, a second rewritable memory 30 which stores display character information related to the given language block and a control processing section 40 which reads the display character information stored in the second memory and conducts display control processes.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a character display control device, a method of manufacturing the same, and display character information storage R.
OM and electronic equipment.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent development of communication information terminals and devices, LCDs of a large amount of data have been developed.
The display is indispensable, and the shipping markets for these terminals and devices are spread all over the world.

[0003] However, the display mode of the characters displayed on the LCD is different if the language is different.
Communication information terminals and devices that store display character information in a display mode corresponding to each language zone have been shipped.

For example, display character information of a device which is specified in Japan has been stored in a character storage ROM with display character information centered on Japanese and alphanumeric characters. However, when considering shipping to languages around the world, for example, Chinese and Korean languages use different characters,
When shipping to Chinese-speaking countries, a character storage ROM that stores kanji display character information is required. When shipping to Korean-speaking countries, a character storage ROM that stores Hangul display character information is required. In.

As described above, the character storage R for each language zone
If the data stored in the OM is different, there is a problem that the number of maintenance steps such as a change in the device version number and development / manufacturing / document / sales management increases.

Here, such a problem can be solved by storing all display character information of characters in each language zone in a unified ROM. However, if display character information is stored in a unified ROM for all languages,
A large-capacity ROM is required, the manufacturing cost increases, and the amount of stored data increases, so the data extraction time increases, and there are many problems in terms of cost and operation speed.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has as its object to provide a character display control device which can be manufactured with uniform specifications in all languages at a low cost, and a manufacturing method thereof. A method, a display character information storage ROM, and an electronic device are provided.

[0008]

According to the present invention, a display control process is performed by reading a nonvolatile first memory, a rewritable second memory, and display character information stored in the second memory. Means for producing a character display control device, comprising: compressing display character information in a plurality of languages by a given compression method to generate compressed data; Generating header information required to read data, storing the compressed data and the header information in a first memory, and generating compressed data associated with a given language zone based on given language designation information. Selectively reading from the first memory and writing display character information generated by expanding the read compressed data into the rewritable second memory;
It is characterized by including.

Here, the display character information is
For example, it is image data or the like including dot information necessary for outputting a character to be displayed on a display.

The nonvolatile first memory can be constituted by, for example, a ROM or the like, and the rewritable second memory can be constituted by, for example, a flash ROM or an EEPROM.

[0011] The compressed data associated with a given language zone is
For example, it is compressed data of display character information necessary for outputting a character in a given language zone to a display.

[0012] The header information necessary for reading the compressed data related to a given linguistic sphere is, for example, the compressed data is divided into a plurality of groups based on the related linguistic sphere, and the linguistic sphere identification information related to each group unit. Such a configuration may be employed, or a configuration may be employed in which a storage location of compressed data necessary for each language zone is provided.

The given language zone designation information may be provided by an external input, or may be stored in an internal ROM or the like.

In the method of manufacturing a character display control device according to the present invention, compressed data of display character information for displaying characters required in all languages in the first memory, or at least all the data to be shipped. It is preferable to store display character information for displaying a character required in a language zone.

After the linguistic sphere to which the device is actually shipped is determined, the compressed data corresponding to the linguistic sphere specified by the linguistic sphere specifying information for specifying the determined linguistic sphere is stored in the first memory. It is preferable that the display character data is read out and expanded to generate display character data and stored in the second memory.

In this way, all the display character information of the characters in each language zone can be stored in the unified ROM without the need for a large-capacity ROM. It is possible to prevent an increase in the number of maintenance steps such as a change in the device version number and a development / manufacturing / document / sales management that occur when stored data is different.

In addition, since only the display character information of a predetermined language zone is used when actually used, there is no problem of an increase in data extraction time.

Therefore, according to the method of manufacturing the character display control device of the present invention, the manufacturing cost of the character display control device can be reduced without lowering the quality.

According to the method of manufacturing a character display control device of the present invention, it is possible to manufacture a character display control device that can be manufactured with uniform specifications in all languages at a low cost.

In the method of manufacturing a character display control device according to the present invention, the display character information is divided into a plurality of groups based on a relevant linguistic sphere, and a compression method is selected for each group to compress the display character information. And storing it in the first memory.

According to the method of manufacturing the character display control device of the present invention, it is possible to employ a compression method having the highest compression ratio according to the characteristics of the data in units of groups. Therefore, the first
Therefore, the capacity of a ROM or the like used as a memory can be reduced, and the manufacturing cost can be further reduced.

The character display control device according to the present invention is required to read out compressed data obtained by compressing display character information of a plurality of linguistic zones by a given compression method and to read compressed data associated with a given linguistic zone. Decompressing a non-volatile first memory storing header information and compressed data associated with a given language zone selectively retrieved from the first memory based on the given language area designation information; It includes a rewritable second memory in which the generated display character information is stored, and means for reading out the display character information stored in the second memory and performing a display control process.

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a character display control device which can be manufactured at a low cost with uniform specifications in all languages.

The present invention also provides a nonvolatile first memory,
A character display control device comprising: a rewritable second memory; and means for reading display character information stored in the second memory and performing display control processing, wherein the nonvolatile first memory is Compressed data obtained by compressing display character information of a plurality of linguistic areas by a given compression method, and header information necessary for reading out compressed data related to a given linguistic area are stored. Compressed data related to a given linguistic sphere is selected and read out from the first memory based on the given linguistic sphere designation information, and display character information generated by decompressing the read compressed data is generated by the rewritable Means for writing to the second memory.

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a character display control device which can be manufactured with uniform specifications in all languages at a low cost.

The writing to the second memory may be performed by software or by hardware.

According to the present invention, there is also provided a display character information storage ROM used in any one of the above character display control devices and functioning as a nonvolatile first memory, comprising: Is stored with compressed data compressed by a given compression method and header information necessary for reading out compressed data related to a given language zone.

According to the present invention, there is provided the character display control device according to any of the above, input means for data to be processed by the character display control device, and outputting the character display data processed by the character display control device. And character display data output means.

By incorporating the character display control device of the present invention into an electronic device, it is possible to reduce the production management cost of the electronic device and to provide an electronic device with high cost performance.

[0030]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an example of a block diagram of the character display control device of the present embodiment.

[0032] Character display control device 1 of the present embodiment
0 is connected to the LCD 70 via the LCD driver 60, and stores the compressed data storage unit 20, the display character information storage unit 30, the display control processing unit 40, and the selective decompression processing unit 5
0 is included.

Here, the character display control device 10 of the present embodiment includes at least the compressed data storage unit 20
, A display character information storage unit 30, and a display control processing unit 40, and other configurations are optional.

The compressed data storage section 20 is composed of a non-volatile memory such as a ROM. The compressed data storage section 20 stores compressed character data obtained by compressing display character information of a plurality of languages in a given compression system, It functions as a nonvolatile first memory in which header information necessary for reading out compressed data to be read is stored.

The display character information storage unit 30 is composed of a rewritable non-volatile memory such as a flash EEPROM or the like.
Function as a rewritable second memory storing display character information generated by decompressing compressed data related to a given language zone selectively extracted from the memory.

The display control processing unit 40 includes, for example, the CPU 4
2, a display character information storage unit (second memory) 30 including a DMA controller 44, a video memory 46, and the like.
, The display character information corresponding to the display content is read out and output to the LCD driver 60.

For example, when the CPU 42 calculates the display contents according to a program given in advance based on the input information and the like, and passes control to the DMA controller 44, the DMA controller performs display character calculation and performs display character processing corresponding to the display contents. The character information may be read from the display character information storage unit (second memory) 30 and stored in the video memory 46, and the display data stored in the video memory 46 may be output to the LCD driver 60.

The selection / decompression processing unit 50 selects and reads out compressed data associated with a given language zone from the compressed data storage unit (first memory) 20 based on the language zone designation information, and reads out the data. The display character information generated by expanding the compressed data is written into the rewritable display character information storage unit 30 (second memory). When the processing is realized by software, the processing can be realized by, for example, executing a decompression program which has been facilitated by the CPU 42 in advance.

The LCD driver 60 is a display control processing unit 40
LCD 70 based on the display character information received from
To display a character corresponding to the display content.

FIG. 2 shows a compressed data storage section (first memory).
FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining a logical configuration of compressed data stored in the storage device.

As shown in FIG. 2, the compressed data storage unit includes a compressed data area 220 and a header area 210. In the compressed data area 220, display character data corresponding to all languages are stored in a compressed state.

The compressed data is divided into a plurality of groups based on a language zone related to the compressed data, and is managed by a header.

For example, if compressed data is stored in the first group to the N-th group, the compressed data area 220 is an area in which the first to N-th compressed data are logically continuous in group units. Is stored in In the header area 210, group identification information 212 and group position identification information 21 for each of the first to Nth groups are provided.
4. At least one linguistic sphere identification information 216 associated with the group is stored.

For example, the header information of the first group includes:
G1 is used as the group identification,
4 is the group data head address ad1 and the group data length l1, and the language zone identification information 216 is all.
Is stored. Group data start address ad1
Compressed data belonging to the first group has an area of 11 bytes from address ad1 (D1
1), and all that is the linguistic sphere identification information 216 indicates that the compressed data is required in all linguistic spheres.

Further, for example, the header information of the second group includes G2 as the group identification, the group data head address ad2 and the group data length 12 as the group position identification information 214, and J as the language zone identification information 216.
P is stored. Group data start address ad
2 and the group data length 12 indicate that the compressed data belonging to the second group is stored in the 12-byte area (D2) from the address ad2, and the JP that is the linguistic identification information 216 is the compressed data. Indicates that the compressed data is necessary in the English-speaking country, and EN indicates that the compressed data is necessary in the English-speaking country. Note that KO, which is the language zone identification information 216, indicates that the compressed data is required in the Korean language zone.

By managing the compressed information grouped in this way with the header information, it is possible to extract and decompress only the data necessary for the designated language zone.

FIGS. 3A to 3D are diagrams for explaining the relationship between the grouped display character information and the language zone that requires it. Here, the display character information is image data including dot-unit information necessary for outputting a character to be displayed to a display.

FIG. 3A schematically shows an example of numerical image data. Since numeric image data is required in all languages, for example,
Data belonging to group 1 of

FIG. 3B schematically shows an example of alphabet image data. Since alphabet image data is required in English-speaking countries and Japanese-speaking countries, it is data belonging to group 2 in FIG. 2, for example.

FIG. 3C schematically shows an example of kana image data. Since the kana image data is required in a Japanese-speaking country, it is data belonging to group 3 in FIG. 2, for example.

FIG. 3D schematically shows an example of Hangul image data. Since the Hangul image data is required in the Korean-speaking country, it becomes data belonging to group 4 in FIG. 2, for example.

FIG. 4 shows a display character information storage ROM.
FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the generation processing of the sigma.

First, grouping is performed on the display character information of all the linguistic areas based on the relation with the required linguistic area (step S10).

For example, taking the case of FIG. 2 as an example, display character information in all linguistic zones is divided from the first group to the Nth group. This grouping is preferably performed so that the correspondence with the corresponding language zone is easy and the information of each group does not overlap.

Next, the processing of steps S20 to S30 is repeated until the processing is completed for all groups (step S40).

That is, the display character information of each group is read, and compressed by the compression method most suitable for the group to generate compressed data (step S20).

Then, header information of the compressed data of the group is generated (step S30). The header information includes information for specifying the position where the compressed data is stored and information for specifying the language zone that requires the display character information of the group. When the compression method is different in each group, information for specifying the compression format of the compressed data may be included.

When the above processing is completed for all groups, the generated compressed data and header information are stored in the ROM (step S50). For example, the RO
When M is generated as a mask ROM, the memory I
C. A process of writing the compressed data and header information generated in the manufacturing process as a circuit is performed.

In this way, the display character information storage ROM in which the compressed data and the header information of the display character information of all the language zones are stored in the ROM functions as a compressed data storage unit (first memory).

FIG. 5 is a flow chart for explaining a process of storing display character information in a rewritable memory. This process may be performed, for example, before the manufacturer ships the product in accordance with the language zone of the shipping destination, or may be performed by the user with initial settings.

First, based on the header information of the first memory,
Information including display character information required for displaying a character in the specified language zone is specified, and the compressed data of the specified group is read (step S11).
0).

The designated linguistic sphere may be a form given by an external input, or may be a case in which the designated linguistic sphere is written in an internal non-volatile area in advance and is performed based on the value. For example, RAM as rewritable memory
In the case where is used, a storage process is required every time the power is turned on. Therefore, it is preferable to write a language area specified in advance in an internal non-volatile area as in the latter case and perform the processing based on the value.

Next, the read data is expanded (step S120). When compression is performed by a plurality of compression methods, expansion processing according to the compression format is performed. In such a case, it is preferable to add information for specifying the compression format to the header.

Then, the decompressed data is written into a rewritable memory (step S130).

By storing the display character information necessary for displaying the characters in the designated language zone in the rewritable memory in this manner, the rewritable memory is stored in the display character information storage unit (the 2 memory).

FIG. 6 shows an example of a block diagram of an electronic apparatus according to the present embodiment. The electronic device 800 includes a character display control unit 810, an input unit 820, a memory 830, a power generation unit 840, an LCD 850, and a sound output unit 860.

The input section 820 is for inputting various data. The character display control unit 810 uses the character display control device of the present embodiment, and performs various processes based on data input by the input unit 820. The memory 830 serves as a work area for the character display control unit 810 and the like.
The power supply generation unit 840 is for generating various power supplies used in the electronic device 800. The LCD 850 is for outputting various images (characters, icons, graphics, etc.) displayed by the electronic device. Sound output section 8
Reference numeral 60 denotes a device for outputting various sounds (sounds, game sounds, and the like) output from the electronic device 800.
It can be realized by hardware such as a speaker.

FIG. 7A shows an example of an external view of a mobile phone 950 which is one of electronic devices. This mobile phone 950
Is a dial button 952 that functions as an input unit, and an LCD 954 that displays telephone numbers, names, icons, and the like.
And a speaker 95 that functions as a sound output unit and outputs sound.
6 is provided.

FIG. 7B shows an example of an external view of a portable game device 960 which is one of the electronic devices. The portable game device 960 includes an operation button 9 functioning as an input unit.
62, an arrow key 964, and an LCD for displaying a game image
966 and a speaker 968 that functions as a sound output unit and outputs game sounds.

FIG. 7C shows an example of an external view of a portable information device (PDA) 970 which is one of the electronic devices. The portable information device (PDA) 970 includes a keyboard 972 that functions as an input unit, an LCD 974 that displays characters, numbers, graphics, and the like, and a sound output unit 976.

By incorporating the character display control device of the present embodiment into the electronic equipment shown in FIGS. 7A to 7C, it is possible to reduce the production management cost, and to provide an electronic equipment with high cost performance. Can be provided.

As electronic equipment to which the present embodiment can be applied, in addition to those shown in FIGS. 7A, 7B, and 7C, a personal computer, a pager, an electronic desk calculator, and a device equipped with a touch panel , Projectors, word processors, viewfinder-type or monitor direct-view type video tape recorders, car navigation devices, etc.
Various electronic devices using a display such as a CD can be considered.

Note that the present invention is not limited to this embodiment,
Various modifications can be made within the scope of the present invention.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an example of a block diagram of a character display control device according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for describing a logical configuration of compressed data stored in a compressed data storage unit (first memory) according to the present embodiment.

FIGS. 3A to 3D are diagrams for explaining a relationship between grouped display character information and a language zone that requires it.

FIG. 4 is a display character information storage RO according to the embodiment;
It is a flowchart figure for demonstrating the generation process of M.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining a process of storing display character information in a rewritable memory in the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a block diagram of an electronic device of this embodiment.

FIGS. 7A, 7B, and 7C are examples of external views of various electronic devices.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 character display control device 20 display character information storage unit (first memory) 30 compressed data storage unit (second memory) 40 display control processing unit 42 CPU 44 DMA controller 46 video memory 50 selection decompression processing unit 60 LCD driver 70 LCD 200 Compressed data storage ROM 210 Header area 212 Group identification 214 Group position identification information 216 Language area identification information 800 Electronic device 810 Character display control unit 820 Input unit 830 Memory 840 Power generation unit 850 LCD 860 Sound output unit

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A character display control including a nonvolatile first memory, a rewritable second memory, and a unit for reading display character information stored in the second memory and performing display control processing. A method of manufacturing a device, comprising: headers necessary for generating compressed data by compressing display character information in a plurality of linguistic areas by a given compression method and reading out compressed data associated with a given linguistic area Generating information and storing said compressed data and header information in a first memory; selecting compressed data associated with a given language zone from the first memory based on given language designation information; Reading and writing display character information generated by expanding the read compressed data into the rewritable second memory. Device manufacturing method. 2. The first memory according to claim 1, wherein the display character information is divided into a plurality of groups based on an associated language zone, and a compression method is selected for each group to compress the display character information. A method for manufacturing a character display control device, characterized in that the character display control device is stored. 3. A nonvolatile memory storing compressed data obtained by compressing display character information of a plurality of linguistic areas by a given compression method, and header information necessary for reading out compressed data relating to a given linguistic area. And a display character information generated by decompressing compressed data related to a given language zone selectively extracted from the first memory based on the given language area designation information. A character display control device, comprising: a second rewritable memory stored therein; and a unit for reading display character information stored in the second memory and performing a display control process. 4. A character display control including a nonvolatile first memory, a rewritable second memory, and a unit for reading display character information stored in the second memory and performing display control processing. The non-volatile first memory reads out compressed data obtained by compressing display character information in a plurality of linguistic areas by a given compression method and compressed data associated with a given linguistic area. Header information necessary for the selected language data is stored, compressed data related to the given language zone is selected from the first memory based on the given language specification information, and the read compressed data is decompressed. Means for writing the display character information generated as described above into the rewritable second memory. 5. A display character information storage ROM used in the character display control device according to claim 3 and functioning as a nonvolatile first memory, the display character information storage ROM for displaying a plurality of languages. A display character information storage characterized by storing compressed data obtained by compressing character information according to a given compression method and header information necessary for reading out compressed data related to a given language zone. ROM. 6. A character display control device according to claim 3, wherein said character display control device processes data to be processed, and character display data processed by said character display control device. And a character display data output means for outputting a character display data.