Industry-leading touch sensing technology targets advanced next-generation displays

Atmel has launched its next-generation maXTouch U family, bringing the world's first capacitive touchscreen solution to allow no compromise for designing new state-of-the-art displays. OEMs will no longer have to worry about touch and display performance when selecting thinner stacks such as on-cell, hybrid in-cell, full in-cell touchscreens utilizing very thin film and glass substrates, says the company. The proliferation of smart devices along with the innovation in display technologies have put many new challenging requirements on touchscreen technology. The touchscreens not only have to operate with thin noisier displays, cheaper noisier chargers and numerous environmental noise sources, but also have to work with thick gloves in cold climates, moisture in humid environments and stylus for content creation. The maXTouch U architecture is designed from the ground-up to service these requirements, enabling the highest hover distance of 25mm while cutting the touch power by 50%. This family provides full in-cell integration without requiring costly display synchronization for the OEM, enabling the fastest touch response for users compared to any competing solution today. maXTouch U series allows multi-finger operation with moisture on the screen and supports side-buttons for an easy-to-use user experience especially in camera mode. The high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) supports very thin 1mm passive and active stylus handwriting with full palm rejection for a flawless content creation experience. "Competing touch solutions do not have the fundamental building blocks required to support the technical demands of thinner and flexible advanced displays," said Binay Bajaj, senior director of touch marketing, Atmel Corporation. "Meeting these technological demands, the new maXTouch U family is truly a testament to the team's innovative engineering techniques. Leading OEMs are extremely excited to use this new architecture to achieve unprecedented touch performance for next-generation products." The maXTouch mXT874U is the first sampling product in the new family, says the company.