One-Touch Sensor Improves Stylists on Various Products
May 6, 2010 by admin
Filed under Touch Sensing
Housed in a tiny 8-pin package, the STM8T141 touch-sensor controller from STMicroelectronics can improve the performance and styling of products, such as mobile phones, portable consumer products, and appliances. The IC allows the replacement of conventional buttons with a touch sensor for main power-on/off or to trigger wake-up from battery-saving sleep modes.
The STM8T141 draws a current as low as 11 µA from the battery and can detect user presence via the touch-sensor electrode, responding quickly to wake the system from a low-power sleep mode. It monitors a single touch-sensing electrode embedded on the control panel of an end-product or in the outer casing. The sensor can be hidden, or its position indicated using a printed, overlaid, or illuminated icon.
The device also supports proximity sensing, allowing equipment to be controlled without direct contact from the user. This allows the sensor to control power-saving features, such a system wake-up on user detection, or features for added convenience, like automatic backlight activation supporting find-in-the-dark capability.
Other features include self-calibration, automatic recalibration, and environmental compensation filtering. The chip supports a driven electrode-shielding wire, which protects against noise from external sources without the reduction in electrode sensitivity experienced with a grounded shield.
A number of development tools are available for the touch-sensor IC. An evaluation kit demonstrates the chip’s touch and proximity features, while the ST-TSLINK programming dongle and STM8T14X-SB socket programming board are used with the STVP PC-based programming tools for product configuration.
The STM8T141 is sampling to lead customers in the 3×2x0.6-mm ultra-small and low-profile DFN8 package and is now in volume production. High volumes are available immediately in a narrow variant of the SO-8 package, priced at $0.45 in quantities of 10,000.
“Smart” Contact Lens Promises To Detect Glaucoma Earlier
STMicroelectronics will develop and supply a wireless MEMS sensor that acts as a transducer, antenna and mechanical support for additional read-out electronics in a breakthrough platform developed by Swiss company Sensimed AG. This solution will enable better management of glaucoma patients via earlier diagnosis and treatment that is optimally tailored to the individual patient.
Known as the SENSIMED Triggerfish®, the solution is based on a “smart” contact lens that uses a tiny embedded strain gauge to monitor the curvature of the eye over a period of, typically, 24 hours, providing valuable disease management data that is not currently obtainable using conventional ophthalmic equipment.
Glaucoma(3), the second most common cause of blindness around the world, is an irreversible progressive disease of the optic nerve that can eventually lead to blindness. Â Although it cannot be cured, its progress can be controlled once it is diagnosed and treated properly. The standard test is the measurement of intraocular pressure (IOP), using an instrument known as a tonometer, during periodic visits to an ophthalmologist. However, the tonometer may fail to detect an elevated IOP, especially in glaucoma patients, because the pressure varies during the day and often peaks during sleep or outside of office hours. As a result, the disease is often diagnosed only after significant damage to the optic nerve has already occurred, and the disease keeps progressing in many patients due to inadequate treatment.
Sensimed’s ingenious solution is a two-part system comprising the smart contact lens and a small receiver worn around the patient’s neck. Â In addition to the strain gauge the lens contains an antenna, a tiny dedicated processing circuit and an RF transmitter to communicate the measurements to the receiver. The lens is powered via the received radio waves and does not need to be connected to a battery. The embedded components are positioned in the lens in such a way that they do not interfere with the patient’s vision. The lens is fitted by the ophthalmologist and when the patient returns the next day the ophthalmologist removes the lens and receiver, obtaining a complete record of IOP changes over the preceding 24 hours.
The SENSIMED Triggerfish® has obtained the CE mark(4), is currently running numerous application trials, and is commercially available in selected centers.  ”The device is easy to use and has facilitated and improved patient care substantially,” said Dr.Kaweh Mansouri who has been using the Triggerfish at the University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland.
ST engineers are now working with Sensimed to translate this breakthrough technology into a reliable commercial MEMS product ready for mass production. ST expects the development of the MEMS sensor to be completed in Q2 2010 and manufacturing to start in Q3 2010, with availability outside trials to doctors and patients subject to regulatory approvals. Sensimed and ST anticipate progressively rolling out the product country-by-country across Europe beginning in Q3 and entering the US market by the end of 2011.
Multi-Touch ‘Resistive’ Touchscreen Controller Chip
As the latest high-tech devices such as smartphones, mobile internet devices and netbooks adopt multi-touch touchscreens to support increasingly sophisticated ‘apps’ and games,STMicroelectronics has introduced a multi-touch ‘resistive’ touchscreen controller chip to optimize the Bill of Materials of the electronics supporting this advanced capability. The STM32TS60 is the first member of ST’s new STMTouch family, which offers a broad portfolio of solutions including multi-touch devices and proximity and touch-key sensors.
The new multi-touch controller detects up to ten simultaneous touches with fingers, nails or stylus, enabling application designers to replace complex menu sequences with more direct and natural user controls. Actions made easier with multi-touch capabilities include browsing and selecting options, handwriting and data entry, arranging and sizing windows, picking up and dragging images, and fast and intuitive game play. Other abilities include drawing pictures, using touch pressure to adjust line thickness.
Employing resistive touch-panel technology, the STM32TS60 controller offers customers a real alternative and complements the recent industry trend for using capacitive touch technology. Resistive technology is a cost effective and mature high-volume solution that has seen dramatically improved performance over the past few years in terms of durability and display transparency. In addition, it easily overcomes EMI (electromagnetic interference) noise issues, which can be an inherent limitation with alternative touch technologies. Resistive technology is already widely used in PDAs and similar touch-enabled devices and the screens are readily available in standard LCD sizes and at competitive prices.
The new chip combines the company’s STM32 microcontroller architecture with PMatrixTM Multi-Touch technology from ST‘s partner Stantum to achieve fast response times while minimizing system complexity and component count.
The STM32TS60 single-core microcontroller is an added-value solution compared to other expensive multi-core processor or digital signal processors (DSPs) requiring specialized programming expertise.
The STM32TS60’s high EMI immunity makes it suitable for use in multi-function wireless products such as cellphones, notebook PCs, netbooks and mobile Internet devices. Moreover, its low power consumption helps to maximize operating times and recharge intervals, and is a direct benefit of the STM32’s energy-saving design features and ARM® Cortex™-M3 processor conceived for power-sensitive embedded applications. In addition, very-low-power idle mode with ‘wake-up on touch only’ helps further extend mobile battery life.
The STM32TS60 is housed in a 7 x 7mm 144-pin UFBGA package, and is now sampling to lead customers. Volume production is expected for Q2 2010.
3-Axis Gyroscope Provides 360° Detection
STMicroelectronics has introduced a high performance single-package analog gyroscope that accurately measures angular rates along three orthogonal axes. Combining superior accuracy with high stability and a small size, ST’s 3-axis gyroscope heralds the widespread adoption of realistic-motion user interfaces in all kinds of consumer applications.
The sensor provides 360° angular-rate detection for high-precision 3D gesture and motion recognition in mobile phones, game controllers, personal navigation systems and other portable devices. Combined with a 3-axis accelerometer, ST’s newest gyroscope enables the creation of Inertial Measurement Units, devices that track and deliver complete information on the type, rate, and direction of motion of humans, vehicles and other objects.
The innovative gyroscope provides two separate outputs for each of the three axes at the same time: a 400dps full-scale value for high accuracy of slow motion and a 1,600dps full-scale value to detect and measure very fast gestures and movements. The two simultaneous full-scale outputs, together with high resolution and excellent stability over an extended temperature range (from -40°C to 85°C) and over time, set new standards in precision, accuracy and stability, and simplify the sensor integration at both the software and hardware level.
ST’s 3-axis gyroscope can operate with any supply voltage in the range of 2.7 to 3.6V. Robust and resistant to mechanical stress, ST’s 3-axis gyroscope leverages the same manufacturing process that ST has already successfully applied to more than 600 million accelerometers sold in the market. “In 2003, ST was the first to deliver a 3-axis analog accelerometer in a single package,” said Benedetto Vigna, General Manager of STMicroelectronics’ MEMS and Healthcare division. “Now we are the first to have a 3X Analog Gyroscope.”
Samples of ST’s LYPR540AH 3-axis gyroscope, in a 4.4 x 7.5 x 1.1mm package, are available now, with volume production scheduled for Q1 2010. Unit pricing is $3.6 for volumes in the range of 10k.
