Maxim's MAXREFDES99# is an easy to use and flexible development board to support rapid prototyping for the MAX7219 LED display driver supported by the online development environment ARM^® mbed™ and Arduino platforms.

The MAXREFDES99# is an Arduino form-factor shield which drives a 16 x 16 LED array for signage applications. This design is ideal for anyone developing a display application. The board features Maxim’s MAX7219, a legendary LED driver that simplifies the process of controlling multiple LEDs in matrix or numeric display form. In MAXREFDES99#, four MAX7219 ICs are daisy-chained to drive a full 256-LED array, which can display any international alphanumeric symbol. The board arrives complete with four 8 x 8 LED displays.

Code for the MAXREFDES99# is available on both Arduino and ARM mbed platforms for quick prototyping with multiple platform boards. System demonstrations include the display of ASCII characters 'SPACE' through ‘~’ and writing/scrolling string messages. Developers are encouraged to build upon and enhance the code base.

The source code for these libraries and their corresponding ‘Hello World’ demo programs can be found in the design files, or at the following links.