Stmicroelectronics Asia Pacific Pte Limited

Apple Inc.

Praveesh Chandran

Mythreyi Nagarajan

Ravi Bhatia

Dianbo Guo

Kien Beng Tan

Chee Weng Cheong

Yuta Kuboyama

Giuseppe Noviello

Lokesh Kumar Korapati

Chaochao Zhang

Baranidharan Karuppusamy

Leonard Liviu Dinu

Chee Yu Ng

Manoj Vadeentavida

Kishore N Renjan

Bilal Mohamed Ibrahim Kani

Manivannan Ponnarasu

Kyusang Kim

Pierpaolo Lupo

Gee-Heng Loh

Ys On

Prashanth S Holenarsipur

Kusuma Adi Ningrat

Tingjun Xu

Wenrui Cai

Yifei Wang

Nicholas P Allec

Tsu-Hui Lin

Xiaoyang Zhang

Hon Siong Ng

Ryan M Buck

Xi Chen

Leonard Dinu

HonSiong Ng

Vinodh Babu

A wearable electronic device such as an earbud, wristwatch, or other device may be provided with a skin sensor. The skin sensor may use optical measurements to detect the presence of skin adjacent to the electronic device. The sensor may have first and second light-emitting devices such as infrared devices that emit light at respective first and second infrared light wavelengths. Reflected light is monitored by a photodetector. Control circuitry can initiate or pause audio playback or take other actions in response to determining from the reflected light measurements that skin is present. The sensor may have a thin-film interference filter or other optical structure that overlaps the first and second light-emitting devices to narrow the angular spread of light emitted from the skin sensor. This reduces tilt sensitivity and helps enhance skin sensor accuracy.

Electronic devices with skin sensors

Optical packages and methods of fabrication are described. In an embodiment, a controller chip is embedded along with optical components, including a photodetector (PD) and one or more emitters, in a single package.

Embedded packaging concepts for integration of ASICs and optical components

Optical sensor modules and methods of fabrication are described. In an embodiment, an optical component is mounted on a module substrate. In an embodiment, a pillar of stacked wireballs adjacent the optical component is used for vertical connection between the module substrate and a top electrode pad of the optical component.

Miniaturization of optical sensor modules through wirebonded ball stacks

A capacitive sensing structure includes a first sensing electrode located in a first layer for sensing a first capacitance and producing a first sense signal indicative of the sensed first capacitance. A transmit electrode is located in the first layer and positioned surrounding 90%+ of a perimeter of the first sensing electrode. A second sensing electrode is located in the first layer and positioned surrounding 90%+ of a perimeter of the transmit electrode, the second sensing electrode to sense a second capacitance and produce a second sense signal indicative of the sensed second capacitance. Controller circuitry receives the first and second sense signals, compares a change in the sensed first capacitance to a change in the sensed second capacitance, and produces an output signal indicative of a user touch based upon the comparison between the change in the sensed first capacitance and the change in the sensed second capacitance.

Mutual hover protection for touchscreens

A touch screen controller identifies an island in a matrix of acquired touch data values. A first sharpness of the island is calculated and a second sharpness of the island is calculated if the calculated first sharpness is greater than a sharpness threshold. A dynamic strength threshold is then determined as a function of the second sharpness if a variance of the island is greater than a dynamic variance threshold. A determination is then made that the identified island is a valid stylus island if a peak strength of the island is greater than the dynamic strength threshold.

Support of narrow tip styluses on touch screen devices

The present disclosure is directed to a system and method to remove common mode noise projected onto a touch sensor array from a display. The system is configured to activate two rows of electrodes at the same time, while coupling remaining rows of electrodes to ground. A first one of the two activated rows is used for detection of a touch and a second one of the two activated rows is used to detect common mode noise from the display. The common mode noise detected by the second row is removed from signals received from a plurality of columns of the touch sensor array.

Common mode noise reduction in capacitive touch sensing

Disclosed is a touch sensor and method for detecting a touch in a capacitive touchscreen application, wherein the touch sensor is capable of distinguishing between a finger hovering above the touch sensor and a touch from a stylus having a small contact surface area without having to adjust the sensitivity of the touch sensor. The touch sensor includes a first sensing electrode, a transmit electrode, and a second sensing electrode, wherein the second sensing electrode is positioned substantially around the perimeter of the inner circuitry (i.e., transmit electrode and first sensing electrode). A touch is detected by sensing changes in a first capacitance between the transmit electrode and first sensing electrode and a second capacitance between the transmit electrode and second sensing electrode. The changes in the first and second capacitances are compared to determine whether the changes in the capacitances are due to a finger hover or a touch.

An electronic device may include an optical proximity sensor system. The optical proximity sensor system may be a transreflective optical proximity sensor system having a light emitter that emits light into a light-emitting region and a light detector that detects light in a light-detecting region. Control circuitry in the device can use the transreflective optical proximity sensor system to detect objects in an object detection region formed where the light-emitting region and light-detecting region overlap. The electronic device may be a pair of headphones in which housing structures such as housing walls define ear cup cavities. Speakers may be provided in the ear cups of the headphones to provide sound to the ear cup cavities. The transreflective optical proximity sensor system can detect the presence of a user's ear in an ear cup cavity.

Electronic device having transreflective optical sensors

An active stylus is capacitively coupled to a capacitive touch panel for communication. The active stylus operates in a wait mode to receive initial communications from the panel. In response to such receipt, the active stylus synchronizes to a repeating communications frame implementing time division multiplexing. Communications from the active stylus to the panel include: information communications; synchronization communications and communications specific for columns and/or rows of the panel. Communications from the panel to the active stylus may be addressed uniquely to the stylus or commonly to a group of styluses.

System and method of communication between a capacitive touch screen and an active stylus

An electronic device disclosed herein includes a touch screen controller to identify an island i.e., a matrix of acquired touch data values, the island including adjacent touch data values indicating a potential touch of a touch sensitive screen. A first sharpness of the island is calculated using a first normalization type and not a second normalization type. A second sharpness of the island is calculated using the first and second normalization types if the first sharpness is greater than the sharpness threshold. A dynamic variance threshold is determined as a function of the second sharpness. A dynamic strength threshold is determined as a function of the second sharpness if a variance of the island is greater than the dynamic variance threshold, and the island is determined to be a valid stylus island if the peak strength is greater than the dynamic strength threshold.

In one implementation, a capacitive sensing structure comprises rows of first sensors electrically coupled together and columns of second sensors electrically coupled together, wherein the first sensors include: a first arm extending in a first direction and having a first plurality of finger structures extending therefrom, a second arm extending in the first direction and having a second plurality of finger structures extending therefrom, and an end portion connecting the arms, wherein the first sensors define open regions that are occupied by the second sensors. In a second implementation, a capacitive sensing structure comprises rows of first sensors and columns of second sensors, wherein each of the first sensors includes an elongated portion having finger structures extending therefrom, and wherein each of the second sensors includes a primary portion connected to secondary portions via arms, wherein the secondary portions occupy gaps defined by the finger structures of the first sensors.

Cross hatch ITO sensor pattern for touchscreens

A method of pairing an intelligent input device with an electronic device includes transmitting a start pairing identifier and receiving a unique identifier that identifies the intelligent input device. The method further includes authenticating the unique identifier using authentication information stored in the electronic device and transmitting a pairing successful identifier responsive to the unique identifier being authenticated to thereby pair the intelligent input device and the electronic device.

Growing community of inventors

Singapore, Singapore

Praveesh Chandran