Atmel Corporation

Harald Philipp

Esat Yilmaz

Samuel Daniel Brunet

Luben Hristov Hristov

Peter Timothy Sleeman

Matthew Trend

Daniel Pickett

Kevin Snoad

Alan Bowens

Brent Guard

Disclosed examples of electrode structures and methods of manufacture thereof may provide one or more advantages relating to enhanced conductivity, for example, while providing optically clear conductors.

Enhanced conductors

An assembly has an array of first electrodes distributed across an active area of the touchscreen assembly such that the density of first electrodes increases in a first direction across the touchscreen. An array of second electrodes is distributed across an active area of the touchscreen assembly such that the density of second electrodes decreases in the first direction across the touchscreen.

Touchscreen electrode arrangement

In certain embodiments, an apparatus includes a first substrate with sense electrodes of a touch sensor disposed on it and a second substrate with drive electrodes of the touch sensor disposed on it. One or more of the following is true: the sense electrodes of the first substrate are made of a first conductive mesh of conductive material such that the sense electrodes include the first conductive mesh; and the drive electrodes of the second substrate are made of a second conductive mesh of conductive material such that the drive electrodes include the second conductive mesh. The apparatus also includes an insulating layer between the sense electrodes of the first substrate and the drive electrodes of the second substrate.

Sensor stack with opposing electrodes

A position sensor comprises first and second electrodes that generally extend in a first direction and are arranged in a pattern that defines a sensitive area, the second electrodes interleaved with the first electrodes in a second direction. The first electrodes comprise first, second, and third groups of elements, elements in the first, second, and third groups being connected to each other but not to elements in another group. The elements have shapes configured for adjacent elements in the first and second groups to co-extend in the first direction over a first portion of the sensitive area and to provide ratiometric capacitive signals with respect to each other in the first direction, and adjacent elements in the second and third groups to co-extend in the first direction over a second portion of the sensitive area and to provide ratiometric capacitive signals with respect to each other in the first direction.

Two dimensional position sensor

A capacitive touch sensor wherein the touch sensitive panel has drive electrodes arranged on the lower side of a substrate and sense electrodes arranged on the upper side. The drive electrodes are shaped and dimensioned to substantially entirely cover the touch sensitive area with individual drive electrodes being separated from each other by small gaps, the gaps being so small as to be practically invisible. The near blanket coverage by the drive electrodes also serves to screen out interference from noise sources below the drive electrode layer, such as drive signals for an underlying display, thereby suppressing noise pick-up by the sense electrodes that are positioned above the drive electrodes.

Capacitive touch screen with noise suppression

A device includes a plurality of adjacent electrodes for a touch sensitive device. The electrodes run generally in a first direction. Adjacent electrodes are interdigitated to provide one or more interpolation sections of the electrodes. Touch sensitive devices may utilize such interdigitated electrodes as drive electrodes, along with transverse sense electrodes formed over a display.

Interdigitated touchscreen electrodes

A sensor is arranged to determine the presence of an object from a change in a capacitance of a sensing element. The sensor includes a capacitance measurement circuit operable to perform measurement cycles to measure a capacitance of the sensing element, and a controller circuit. The control circuit is operable to detect a periodic noise signal induced on the sensing element, to determine a first part, of a repeating pattern of the periodic noise signal, which causes a change in an amount of charge present on the sensing element, which affects the measurement of the capacitance of the sensing element by the capacitance measurement circuit, to determine a second part of the repeating pattern of the periodic noise signal, which does not cause a change in the amount of charge present on the sensing element, and to control the measurement cycles of the capacitance measurement circuit to perform the measurement cycles during the second part of the periodic noise signal and not to perform the measurement cycles during the first part of the periodic noise signal.

Sensor and method of sensing

A method of sensing the presence of a body from a change in an amount of charge present on a capacitively charged key. The method comprises inducing charge onto the key during a drive part of a measurement cycle, coupling a signal measurement capacitor to the key during a signal measurement part of the measurement cycle to the effect that the charge induced on the key during the drive part of the measurement cycle is transferred to the signal measurement capacitor, determining from a noise measurement part of the measurement cycle an amount of charge induced on the key by noise during the signal measurement part of the measurement cycle, and controlling the drive part, the signal measurement part and the noise measurement parts of the cycle to provide the charge sensing circuit with a measurement of the signal from which the noise induced on the key has been or can be substantially cancelled.

Capacitive sensing with low-frequency noise reduction

A touchscreen includes touchscreen electrode elements distributed across an active area of a substrate, and the touchscreen overlays a display. The touchscreen electrode elements are configured to avoid creating moir&#xe9; patterns between the display and the touchscreen, such as angled, wavy, zig-zag, or randomized lines. In a further example, the electrodes form a mesh pattern configured to avoid moir&#xe9; patterns.

Touchscreen electrode configuration

In touch sensitive display devices, the display scanning circuitry responsible for driving images of the panel screen can cause noise on the electrodes of nearby touch sensors. The display controller circuit and/or the touch sensor controller circuit of the exemplary touchscreen display devices may be configured to reduce such noise during the touch sensor acquisition cycle by implementing one or more of several techniques in which a portion of each of the sensor acquisition cycles occurs within a period of reduced noise from a cycle of the scanning of the display.

Noise reduction in capacitive touch sensors

In certain embodiments, an apparatus comprises a charge-measurement capacitor and circuitry. The circuitry is configured to provide a pre-determined amount of charge to the charge-measurement capacitor and transfer an accumulated amount of charge on a sense electrode to the charge-measurement capacitor, the accumulated amount of charge having accumulated on the sense electrode due at least in part to noise. The circuitry is configured measure a voltage of the charge-measurement capacitor to determine the accumulated amount of charge.

Noise measurement in capacitive touch sensors

A capacitive two-dimensional (2D) touch panel has three sets of interleaved electrodes. A first set of electrodes is spaced apart along the y-direction and these are galvanically connected to each other by a resistive strip connected at either end to a connection line. A second set of electrodes is also arrayed along the y-direction and these are galvanically connected to each other via a notionally non-resistive first connection. A third set of electrodes is also arrayed along the y-direction and these are galvanically connected to each other via a notionally non-resistive second connection. The second and third sets of electrodes are interleaved without galvanic cross-conduction to provide a gradient along the x-direction to resolve touch position in the x-direction. The first set of electrodes resolves touch position along the y-direction. Passive or active capacitive sensing techniques may be used to acquire the position information from the 2D touch panel.

Touch screen element

A capacitive touch sensitive position sensor is provided which has a substrate defining a touch sensitive platform. First and second resistive bus-bars arranged spaced apart on the substrate. A conductive sensing area is formed between the bus bars and is constructed with first and second conductive elements connected to the first and second resistive bus-bars respectively, and spaced apart from each other by non-conducting gaps, so that currents induced in the conductive sensing area flow towards the bus-bars, but are prevented from flowing in a direction parallel to the bus-bars. This design removes pin-cushion distortion and enhances linearization of the output signals. Because the sensing region is not galvanically coupled from one bus bar to the other, the voltage gradients remain uniform and undistorted. Capacitive coupling from one side to the other does not produce a distortion component provided that the capacitance is allowed to fully charge and discharge across all locations in the sensing region.

Hybrid capacitive touch screen element

A touchscreen display assembly has an array of first electrodes distributed across an active area of the touchscreen display assembly such that the density of first electrodes increases in a first direction across the touchscreen. An array of second electrodes is distributed across an active area of the touchscreen display assembly such that the density of second electrodes decreases in the first direction across the touchscreen. The position in the first direction of an input on the touchscreen can be determined by the proportion of first and second electrodes density in the area of the input.

In one embodiment, a sensor includes a plurality of drive electrodes running generally in a first direction. The sensor also includes a plurality of sense electrodes running generally in a second direction. The sense electrodes have branches running generally in the first direction. End portions of the adjacent branches of adjacent sense electrodes extend beyond one another to define respective coextensive portions of the branches.

Growing community of inventors

Hamble, United Kingdom

Harald Philipp