Alien Technology Corporation

Apple Inc.

Ruizhang Technology Limited Company

University of California

Other

Shapirten Laboratories LLC

John Stephen Smith

Mark Alfred Hadley

Gordon S W Craig

Jeffrey Jay Jacobsen

Sinan Filiz

James E Pedder

Martin Paul Grunthaner

Charley T Ogata

Christopher J Butler

Shin John Choi

Jay Tu

Roger Green Stewart

Michael Vosgueritchian

Brian Quentin Huppi

Curtis Lee Carrender

Glenn Wilhelm Gengel

Dhaval Chandrakant Patel

Frank Lowe

Christian M Sauer

Blake R Marshall

Manu Agarwal

Hsi-Jen J Yeh

Steven James Martisauskas

Edward John Boling

Curt Carrender

Xiaonan Wen

Daniel Jacob Benjamin Bechstein

Ann Chiang

James Harold Atherton

Storrs Townsend Hoen

Paul Franklin Nealey

Tingjun Xu

Vipin Ayanoor-Vitikkate

Vikram Garg

Daniel J Bechstein

Robert Ubo Liu

MohammadAli Khorrami

Wayne Carl Westerman

Joseph Kurth Reynolds

Marduke Yousefpor

Sumant Ranganathan

Elvis Mwenda Kibiti

Miguel C Christophy

Teera Songatikamas

Aryan Hazeghi

Sagar Rajiv Vaze

Christophe Blondin

Xiaofan Niu

Saahil Mehra

Amit Nayyar

David Steven Graff

Zhibin Wang

Srinath Hosur

Wang Chung Alston Cheung

Joyan Gratian Sanctis

Bruce L Darvial

Phillip L Heintz

Lee A Walth

Mark A Hadley

Donald R Rogers

Nicolas M Golzio

Shahrzad Pouryayevali

Vyom Sharma

Duc T Duong

Ying Cao

Cody A Tapscott

Siddharth Shekar

Jared A Brauner

Lindsay Diane Rego Corbet

Nitin Sitaraman

Ullas Chandra Sekhar Pazhayaveetil

Jason Chueh-Ren Hu

Rexford J Garland

Ty N MacAlpine

Anshuman Bhuyan

Scott V Smith

Ashish K Verma

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for enabling a power efficient stylus for an electronic device are provided.

Power efficient stylus for an electronic device

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for enabling a power efficient stylus for an electronic device are provided. Various components may be provided for providing electrostatic discharge protection of such a stylus.

Electrostatic discharge protection of a power efficient stylus for an electronic device

An input device comprising: a printed circuit board (PCB) comprising non-linear circuitry; resistive circuitry including a force-sensitive resistor (FSR) coupled to the PCB in parallel with the non-linear circuitry; and a hinge coupled to the PCB and the FSR configured to strain the FSR in response to a force applied to a tip of the input device. A stylus comprising: a housing; and stylus circuitry at least partially positioned within the housing, wherein the stylus circuitry comprises: body circuitry; a front tip interface; and front tip stylus circuitry positioned between and electrically coupled to the body circuitry and the front tip interface, wherein the front tip stylus circuitry comprises non-linear circuitry in parallel with physical interaction characteristic (PIC) circuitry; wherein the front tip stylus circuitry is operative to provide a non-linear load between the body circuitry and the front tip interface when the stylus is stimulated by an external stimulation; wherein the non-linear load is operative to provide a stylus electric field that is detectable by an electronic device when the front tip interface of the stylus is positioned adjacent an input surface of the electronic device; and wherein a resistance of the PIC circuitry is adjustable based on a force applied to the tip interface or based on a tilt angle of the stylus. An electronic device comprising: a plurality of first electrodes; a plurality of second electrodes; stimulation and sensing circuitry configured to transmit signals on the plurality of first electrodes and sense receive signals on the plurality of second electrodes; and processing circuitry configured to: extract, from the sensed receive signals, data indicative of a non-linear response to the transmit signals; estimate a position of an accessory on a surface of the electronic device based on the extracted data; and estimate a force applied to the accessory in contact with the surface of the electronic device or a tilt angle of the accessory relative to the surface of the electronic device based on the extracted data.

Mechanically sensitive power efficient stylus for an electronic device

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media for enabling position determination of a stylus with receive architecture are provided. The stylus can comprise: a plurality of electrodes; a plurality of sensing circuits coupled to the plurality of electrodes, the plurality of sensing circuits configured to sense receive signals on the plurality of electrodes in response to stimulation signals from a touch sensor panel of an electronic device in communication with the stylus; and a processor coupled to the plurality of sensing circuits, the processor configured to: correlate the receive signals sensed by the plurality of electrodes with a first set of codes to generate correlation data; and transmit data including the correlation data or generated using the correlation data to the electronic device in communication with the stylus.

Stylus with receive architecture for position determination

An electrostatic discharge (ESD) robust design for an input device such as a stylus is disclosed. The input device can include one or more components, such as one or more Schottky diodes, that can be damaged by ESD events. To reduce the likelihood of damage to sensitive components, the parasitic capacitance between sensitive conductive paths and reference ground paths of the input device that could otherwise provide electrostatic discharge paths can be reduced (arranging current limiting resistance at specific locations among sensitive components, creating physical separation between sensitive conductive paths and reference ground paths), shielding can be added to shield the sensitive electronics from ESD pulses, and high dielectric breakdown material can be added to prevent ESD pulse entry or exit of not otherwise protected circuit parts.

Electrostatic discharge robust design for input device

An input device includes a keycap, a first electrode disposed to move in response to movement of the keycap, a planar array of electrodes extending at least partially under the keycap, and a sensor. The planar array of electrodes includes a second electrode, a third electrode, and a fourth electrode extending between the second electrode and the third electrode. The sensor is coupled to at least one of the second electrode or the third electrode and configured to generate a signal indicative of a change in capacitive coupling between the second electrode and the third electrode. The change in the capacitive coupling may result from movement of the first electrode.

Keyboard with capacitive key position, key movement, or gesture input sensors

Touch sensor panels (or touch screens) can improve signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) using touch electrode patterns for differential drive and/or differential sense techniques. In some examples, a touch sensor panel can include a two-dimensional array of touch nodes formed from a plurality of touch electrodes. Each column (or row) of touch nodes can be driven with a plurality of drive signals. For example, a first column (or row) of touch nodes can be driven by a first drive signal applied to one or more first touch nodes in the first column (or row) and a second drive signal applied to a one or more second touch nodes of the first column (or row). In some examples, the first drive signal and the second drive signal can be complimentary drive signals. In some examples, each row (or column) of touch electrodes can be sensed by differential sense circuitry.

Differential drive and sense for touch sensor panel

An input device such as a stylus for providing input to a touch-sensitive surface with reduced sensitivity to leakage current variations over temperature is disclosed. A passive stylus may include one or more diodes in parallel with one or more bleed resistors. The non-linear load of the diode and resistor network can be operative to provide a stylus electric field in response to a stimulation signal from an electronic device that can be capacitively coupled to, and sensed by, the electronic device. The signal sensed by the electronic device can be a function of the total leakage current, which can vary greatly as a function of temperature and frequency. In order to improve performance, the diode and resistor network, including the bleed resistor(s) and diodes within that network, can be selected and/or designed to provide a reduced variation in the leakage current and more accurate stylus detection.

Reducing sensitivity to leakage variation for passive stylus

In some examples, a stylus can include a conductive shield. In some examples, the conductive shield can include a plurality of traces along an edge of a printed circuit board (PCB) including the stylus circuitry. In some examples, the conductive shield can include a shield can coupled to the PCB and disposed around the components of the stylus circuitry. In some examples, the conductive shield can include a hollow portion into which the stylus circuitry can be disposed and a solid portion that can act as a reference electrode. In some examples, the conductive shield can include a hollow sleeve disposed around the stylus circuitry. In some examples, the conductive sleeve can be attached to the PCB. In some examples, the conductive sleeve can be disposed between layers of a housing of the stylus. In some examples, the conductive sleeve can be integrated with the stylus housing.

Shield electrode for input device

In some examples, an input device includes a non-linear component, such as a diode. In response to a drive signal, such as a sinusoidal wave, the non-linear passive input device can produce a non-linear output that includes frequency content at the second and other higher harmonics of the fundamental frequency of the drive signal, for example. In some examples, drive electrodes can be driven with a drive signal having one of two fundamental frequencies such that the frequency of the drive signals are applied in an alternating pattern. The electronic device can sense the signal of the stylus to determine the coarse location of the stylus along the sense electrodes and, based on the frequency content of the received signal, a fine location along the axis of the drive electrodes.

System and method for multi-frequency projection scan for input device detection

Disclosed herein are electronic devices having a deformable surfaces through which a user can provide inputs to the device by applying a force such as a pinch or a squeeze. A particular embodiment is an earpiece with the deformable surface part of an elongate section extending from an earbud. The deformable surface includes an incompressible hyperelastic material and a pressure sensor. The pressure sensor includes a pressure sensing element and a void defined between the pressure sensing element and the incompressible hyperelastic material. An applied force is transferred by the incompressible hyperelastic material to compress the void and change an internal pressure thereof. The changed pressure is detected by the pressure sensor, and can result in changed operation of the electronic device.

Elastomeric pressure transduction based user interface

A device configured to sense a touch on a surface of the device. The device includes a cover and a force-sensing structure disposed below the cover. The force-sensing structure may be positioned below a display and used in combination with other force-sensing elements to estimate the force of a touch on the cover of a device.

Force determination employing sheet sensor

A transparent force sensor for detecting an applied force on a surface of a device. The transparent force sensor includes a transparent force-sensitive film having an array of strain-relief features oriented along a first direction. The transparent force-sensitive film is formed from a transparent piezoelectric material that exhibits a substantially reduced net charge when strained along a primary direction. The force sensor also includes a display element disposed on one side of the transparent force-sensitive film.

Force sensor with strain relief

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

John Stephen Smith