06-01-2025 | Microchip Technology | Industrial
Turnkey touch controllers are an easy way to upgrade from mechanical buttons to modern touch buttons or displays. With the release of its 12-button MTCH2120 touch controller, Microchip Technology provides designers with a straightforward pathway for implementing touch button capabilities on user interfaces. The low-power, water-tolerant turnkey touch device is integrated with the company's unified ecosystem, permitting an easier design process and enabling transitions between other turnkey solutions and MCU-based touch implementations. The device is the first of a family of I2C-based touch controllers with a comprehensive design-in ecosystem.
The device provides a robust touch experience independent of noise events and moisture while delivering high flexibility to adapt to individual product needs. Low-power features allow buttons to be grouped, reducing scan activity and power while enabling the buttons to remain fully operational.
The device features an Easy Tune feature that automatically adjusts sensitivity and filters levels based on real-time noise assessment, removing the need for cumbersome threshold tuning. It also includes an MPLAB Harmony Host Code Configurator plug-in that eliminates the necessity of implementing the I2C protocol on the host and allows for a straightforward connection to Microchip MCUs and MPUs. It also offers design validation via MPLAB Data Visualizer, I2C port expander capabilities, and access to, and compatibility with, the company's touch library, which reduces the necessity for complex software engineering and firmware handling by the designer, helping reduce design cycles. The MTCH2120 evaluation board is also available and supplied with a SAM C21 host MCU for out-of-the-box integration into prototypes.
"The MTCH2120 brings together decades of touch experience with Microchip's comprehensive ecosystem of support and development tools to deliver an easy-to-use, advanced touch experience," said Rodger Richey, vice president of development systems and academic programs at Microchip Technology. "It's a win-win solution. Developers can implement the highest level of touch robustness and great design flexibility, without the hassle of tuning or programming."
The MTCH2120 is the first in the company's MTCH family to include I2C, with the recently released MTCH1010, MTCH1030 and MTCH1060 delivering the same robust touch performance and an uncomplicated GPIO interface. The MTCH2XXX family will add more solutions with bus-controlled flexibility, making the ease of use provided by the design-in ecosystem available to further markets.
