Granted Patent B2

US 11,204,666 · App. 16/946,567 · Granted Dec 21, 2021

Inventor: Anders Vinje (Trondheim, NO)

Assignee: Atmel Corporation

G06F3/04182G06F3/044

Abstract

Claims (32)

1. A touch sensing method, comprising:

generating a drive signal characterized by an energy of the drive signal being allocated over specified frequencies of subcarriers;

providing the drive signal to a touch sensor;

receiving a sensed signal of the touch sensor;

observing an energy of the sensed signal; and

detect a touch at the touch sensor responsive to observing that an observed energy of the sensed signal is different than an energy of the drive signal.

2. The touch sensing method of claim 1 , wherein the generating the drive signal characterized by the energy of the drive signal being allocated over specified frequencies comprises:

generating a spectrally shaped continuous time domain analog signal; and

generating the drive signal responsive to the spectrally shaped continuous time domain analog signal.

3. The touch sensing method of claim 2 , wherein the generating the drive signal responsive to the spectrally shaped continuous time domain analog signal comprises:

mixing in-phase and quadrature-phase components of the spectrally shaped continuous time domain analog signal.

4. The touch sensing method of claim 1 , further comprising:

observing a channel capacitance of the touch sensor responsive to the observed energy of the sensed signal.

5. The touch sensing method of claim 4 , further comprising:

detecting a touch at the touch sensor responsive to observing a change in the channel capacitance of the touch sensor.

6. The touch sensing method of claim 1 , wherein the generating the drive signal characterized by the energy of the drive signal being allocated over specified frequencies comprises generating a spectrally shaped drive signal chosen such that the touch sensor exhibits spectral characteristics at multiple frequencies, wherein the spectral characteristics are within indications of allowable spectral characteristics.

7. A touch sensing system, comprising:

a touch sensor; and

a touch controller configured to:

generate a drive signal characterized by an energy of the drive signal being allocated over specified frequencies of subcarriers;

provide the drive signal to the touch sensor;

observe an energy of a sensed signal received from the touch sensor; and

detect a touch at the touch sensor responsive to observing that an observed energy of the sensed signal is different than an energy of the drive signal.

8. The touch sensing system of claim 7 , wherein the generation of the drive signal characterized by the energy of the drive signal being allocated over specified frequencies comprises:

generate a spectrally shaped continuous time domain analog signal; and

generate the drive signal responsive to the spectrally shaped continuous time domain analog signal.

9. The touch sensing system of claim 8 , wherein the generation of the drive signal responsive to the spectrally shaped continuous time domain analog signal comprises:

mix in-phase and quadrature-phase components of the spectrally shaped continuous time domain analog signal.

10. The touch sensing system of claim 7 , wherein the touch controller is further configured to:

observe a channel capacitance of the touch sensor responsive to the observed energy of the sensed signals.

11. The touch sensing system of claim 7 , wherein the generation of the drive signal characterized by the energy of the drive signal being allocated over specified frequencies comprises:

generate a spectrally shaped drive signal chosen such that the touch sensor exhibits spectral characteristics at multiple frequencies, wherein the spectral characteristics are within indications of allowable spectral characteristics.

Assignments (11)