Atmel Corporation

Neodron Limited

John Stanley Dubery

Shahrooz Shahparnia

Kishore Sundara-Rajan

Trond Jarle Pedersen

Vemund Kval Bakken

Martin John Simmons

Peter Timothy Sleeman

Esat Yilmaz

Vivek Pant

Sherif Hanna

Samuel Daniel Brunet

Paul Heslop

Yahya Yassin

A method including applying a first excitation voltage to an electrode of a touch sensor which charges a capacitive node associated with the electrode from a first voltage level to a second voltage level that is greater than the first voltage level. A first measurement measures a charge to change from the first voltage level to the second voltage level. A second excitation voltage is applied to the electrode which charges the capacitive node from the second voltage level to a third voltage level that is greater than the second voltage level. The capacitive node is discharged from the third voltage level to a fourth voltage level that is less than the second voltage level. A second measurement measures a charge to change from the third voltage level to the fourth voltage level. A measured charge signal is generated based on the first measurement and the second measurement.

Excitation voltages for touch sensors

A multi-channel capacitive sensor for measuring the capacitances of a plurality of sense electrodes to a system reference potential. The sensor comprises a sample capacitor having a first terminal and a second terminal, a first diode having a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the sample capacitor and a second terminal coupled to a first sense electrode, and a second diode having a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the sample capacitor and a second terminal coupled to a second sense electrode. The sample capacitor and diodes are coupled to a control circuit, e.g. implemented in a microcontroller. The control circuit is operable to apply a drive signal, e.g. a series of voltage pulses, to the first terminal of the sample capacitor while simultaneously applying a bias signal to the second terminal of one or other of the diodes to prevent the diode from conducting the drive signal. Thus charge transfer techniques can be used to measure multiple capacitances while sharing a common sample capacitor. This helps reduce inter-channel drift. Further measurement channels may be added by providing further diodes and corresponding sense electrodes. With three or more channels the scheme requires only one additional control circuit connection per additional channel.

Capacitive sensing

Disclosed are segmented sensors and related systems, methods, and devices. In one embodiment, a capacitive sensor includes a first gird of sensor lines, a second grid of sensor lines, and an isolating region defined between the first grid of sensor lines and the second grid of sensor lines. Also disclosed are touch controllers configured for operable coupling to, and detecting touches at, a segmented sensor, and related systems, methods, and devices. In one embodiment, connectors of a touch controllers are configured for operable coupling to sensing lines from different segments of a segmented sensor and touch controllers are configured to detect touches at the different segments.

Segmented capacitive sensor, and related systems, methods and devices

In one embodiment, a device includes a multi-channel capacitive sensor and a control circuit. The control circuit is configured to ground a first sense capacitor and a second sense capacitor of the multi-channel capacitive sensor. The first sense capacitor and the second sense capacitor are adapted to be connected to a drive line. The control circuit is configured to charge, by a first voltage provided on a pin of the controller, an in-series combination of a sample capacitor and the first sense capacitor while not charging the second sense capacitor by the first voltage provided on the pin of the controller. The control circuit is further configured to measure a second voltage on the pin of the controller resulting at least in part from charging the in-series combination, the second voltage providing an indication of a capacitance of the first sense capacitor.

Disclosed is a touch position sensor. Force detection circuitry can be included with the position sensor, for example, to determine an amount of force applied to a touch panel of the sensor.

Touch-sensing panel and force detection

In one embodiment, a sensor includes a voltage driver operable to provide an alternating voltage and an integrator circuit. The sensor further includes a first variable resistance element coupled to a first output of the voltage driver and an input of the integrator circuit. The integrator circuit is operable to measure a parameter of the first variable resistance element over a period of time. The sensor further includes circuitry operable to determine, based on the measured parameter, an amount of force applied to a touch sensing panel.

Position-sensing and force detection panel

A multi-channel capacitive sensor comprises a sample capacitor having first and second terminals, a first diode having a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the sample capacitor and a second terminal coupled to a first sense electrode, and a second diode having a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the sample capacitor and a second terminal coupled to a second sense electrode. The sample capacitor and diodes are coupled to a control circuit. The control circuit is operable to apply a drive signal to the first terminal of the sample capacitor while simultaneously applying a bias signal to the second terminal of one or other of the diodes to prevent the diode from conducting the drive signal.

In certain embodiments, an apparatus includes a touch sensor that includes a touch-sensitive area and a touch-sensor controller. The touch-sensor controller is operable to: scan two or more electrodes within the touch-sensitive area to determine a first location associated with an object within the touch-sensitive area, predict, based on the first location and one or more metrics, two or more next locations associated with the object, select, based on a first next location of the two or more next locations, a first region within the touch-sensitive area, select, based on a second next location of the two or more next locations, a second region within the touch-sensitive area, and scan two or more electrodes within the first region and two or more electrodes within the second region to determine a second location associated with the object. The second region is at least partially different from the first region.

Selective scan of touch-sensitive area for passive or active touch or proximity input

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving sensor data from one or more sensors in or on a stylus, the stylus including one or more electrodes and one or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying logic for wirelessly transmitting signals to a device through a touch sensor of the device. The method includes generating a carrier signal and modulating the carrier signal to communicate the sensor data and wirelessly transmitting from the stylus to the device the carrier signal as modulated through the touch sensor of the device.

Pulse- or frame-based communication using active stylus

In one embodiment, a method comprises detecting, by a hardware accelerator, that a value has been written to a first location of a memory, the first location identified by a first address. The method further includes adding the value to an accumulated value stored in an accumulator register of the hardware accelerator and storing the result in the accumulator register. The method further includes comparing the value to a maximum value stored in a first register of the hardware accelerator and overwriting the maximum value with the value if the value is greater than the maximum value. The method also includes comparing the value to a minimum value stored in a second register of the hardware accelerator and overwriting the minimum value with the value if the value is less than the minimum value.

Combined accumulator and maximum/minimum comparator

In one embodiment, an apparatus comprises a touch sensor comprising a touch-sensitive area, and a touch-sensor controller coupled to the touch sensor. The touch-sensor controller is operable when executed to: select one or more regions associated with a stylus within the touch-sensitive area, and scan one or more electrodes within each region.

In certain embodiments, a multi-channel capacitive sensor for measuring capacitances of sense electrodes to a system reference potential comprises a sample capacitor having first and second terminals. The sensor comprises a first diode having a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the sample capacitor and a second terminal coupled to a first sense electrode, and comprises a second diode having a first terminal coupled to the second terminal of the sample capacitor and a second terminal coupled to a second sense electrode. A control circuit is operable to apply a drive signal to the first terminal of the sample capacitor and apply a bias signal to the respective second terminals of at least one of the first and second diodes so as to selectively prevent the at least one of the first and second diodes from conducting the drive signal to respectively connected sense electrodes.

Growing community of inventors

Basingstoke, United Kingdom

John Stanley Dubery