Microchip Unveils Ensemble Graphics Toolkit
On displays with up to XGA resolution
Provides high performance with basic hardware acceleration


A well-built graphical user interface (GUI) helps users interact efficiently with various applications.

Microchip Technology Inc. today announced the release of a new GUI development toolkit for its 32-bit Linux-based microprocessor (MPU) portfolio. The Ensemble Graphics Toolkit (EGT) helps developers in the industrial, medical, consumer, and automotive graphic display fields reduce development costs and time to market.

EGT is a free, open-source C++ GUI suite that supports Microchip's Arm Cortex-A5-based SAMA5 and SAM9 series and ARM926EJ-S processor-based MPU family, including System-in-Package (SiP) and System-on-Module (SoM) products.

Optimized for Microchip's 32-bit MPUs running the Linux operating system, the EGT leverages native hardware acceleration, including the graphics controller and video decoder, to provide users with high-performance capabilities on low- to mid-end graphics displays with resolutions up to XGA (1024×768 pixels).

EGT provides a variety of GUIs for Microchip MPUs that are power-efficient compared to other graphics solutions that rely on high-performance cores and 3D graphics acceleration. It also provides a cold boot time of less than 3 seconds, which is required for applications such as automotive dashboard clusters.

Available license- and royalty-free, EGT complements Microchip’s bare-metal/RTOS-based MPLAB Harmony Graphics Suite embedded software development framework and provides a royalty-free GUI.

EGT is fully integrated with Microchip's Long Term Support (LTS) Linux offering, Linux4SAM.

Linux4SAM supports a wide range of drivers, including the maXTouch family of touchscreen controllers, memory devices, power management, analog devices, and wired and wireless networking components and modules. Linux4SAM is regularly updated and supports all Microchip MPUs for the life of the product.