Lowest-power capacitive touchscreen controller offers unlimited touch

Lowest-power capacitive touchscreen controller offers unlimited touch

The mXT224 capacitive touchscreen controller is offered as the industry’s lowest-power (10 µW in sleep, less than 2 mW in idle, less than 4 mW fully active touch) device of its kind and the first suitable for advanced touchscreen functionality, such as rejection of unintended touches, stretch/pinch and rotate gestures, handwriting, and shape recognition such as face detection on mobile phones, mobile Internet devices (MID), and netbook screens surpassing 10 in. The part has 224 nodes that allow it to accurately report the positions of unlimited simultaneous touches, and it can completely redraw the screen every 4 ms.

Thanks to its 80:1 SNR and 250-Hz video-screen refresh rate, the controller also supports the use of a stylus for drawing or signature capture and character recognition. The nearest competing off-the-shelf touchscreen solution has half as many nodes, a screen-refresh rate of only 83 Hz (66% slower), and an SNR of only 25:1 (66% less).

The mXT224 integrates the company’s single-cycle RISC AVR core with 32 registers and two on-chip DSP engines that process the x and y positions on the touchscreen. The part is available in a BGA package and is based on the company’s charge transfer and XMEGA technologies. ($4.75 ea/1,000,000 — available now.)

Atmel, USA , San Jose , CA
Sales 408-441-0311

http://www.atmel.com