A fast-sensing readout circuit in 240 Hz enabled by code division multiple access (CDMA) implemented for an ultra-thin on-cell flexible capacitive touch panel

A new fast readout circuit employing the known coding scheme of code division multiple access (CDMA) is successfully designed and applied to a 7-inch ultra-thin, flexible on-cell touch screen panel (TSP). The adopted CDMA is known originally as a coding scheme for data communication, which is applied in this study to address the sensing electrodes of the ultra-thin flexible touch panel. Due to the orthogonality between the driving signals to the touch panel coded by Walsh transform, one type of CDMA, the interference noises between sensing electrodes can be reduced effectively to render accurate touch sensing results. The electromagnetic interference from the flexible display can also be filtered out as baseline component in the output signal. And the frame time of touch reporting can be substantially shortened. Following the sensing electrode is a new readout designed of the switched-capacitor (SC) circuit, to avoid distributing sample signals from parasitic capacitance and also to enlarge the voltage changes due to the capacitance changes caused by touches. A 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is orchestrated after the SC circuit to transform the front-end analog signal to digital codes. The digital part of the designed readout adopts a correction algorithm to eliminate the background signals from the display, and also a moving average algorithm to minimize the higher-frequency noises from the display and other electrodes. Experiments are conducted to validate the expected performance. It is evidenced that the Walsh code driving algorithm improves the quality of the readout output signal to be in 42 dB SNR, the report rate to a fast 240 Hz, and a power consumption of 0.39 mW by each sensing channel.

     

Bending stress analysis of flexible touch panel

Flexible touch panel is required to undertake extensive bending operations during service; thus, bending testing of flexible touch panel for mechanical behaviors and even reliability is crucial for realizing the technology. This study aims at exploring the bending behaviors of a flexible touch panel under a four-point bending test using finite element analysis. The touch panel is a laminated structure composed of seven thin film layers, namely a polyester layer, an adhesive layer, a polyimide layer, two organic layers and two indium tin oxide conductive layers. Because the touch panel structure is symmetry, only a quarter of the flexible touch panel is established in the analysis model. The mechanical properties of the materials are first obtained using both nanoindentation and uniaxial tensile/compressive testing. Furthermore, a modeling technique based on global and local finite element analysis is applied to evaluate the bending stress at a specified radius of curvature. Special emphasis of the calculation is put on the critical region with respect to stress, which is identified as the most susceptible cracking site.     

Flexible AMOLED displays on stainless‐steel foil

Abstract— The world's thinnest flexible full‐color 5.6‐in. active‐matrix organic‐light‐emitting‐diode (AMOLED) display with a top‐emission mode on stainless‐steel foil was demonstrated. The stress in the stainless‐steel foil during the thermal process was investigated to minimize substrate bending. The p‐channel poly‐Si TFTs on stainless‐steel foil exhibited a field‐effectmobility of 71.2 cm²/N‐sec, threshold voltage of ?2.7 V, off current of 6.7 × 10¹³ A/μm, and a subthreshold slope of 0.63 V/dec. These TFT performances made it possible to integrate a scan driver circuit on the panel. A top‐emission EL structure was used as the display element, and thin‐film encapsulation was performed to realize a thin and flexible display. The full‐color flexible AMOLED display on stainless‐steel foil is promising for mobile applications because of its thin, light, rugged, and flexible properties.     

A foldable OLED display with an in‐cell touch sensor having embedded metal‐mesh electrodes

A foldable organic light‐emitting diode display integrating a touch sensor is fabricated. The touch sensor has an in‐cell structure where metal‐mesh sensor electrodes are formed in a counter substrate. It is demonstrated that touch on the entire panel surface, including a bent portion, is detected and that the touch panel operates correctly after 100,000 folding operations with a radius of curvature of 5 mm.     

Robust integrated shift register circuit over clock noises for in‐cell touch applications

This paper proposes an integrated shift register circuit for an in‐cell touch panel that is robust over clock noises. It is composed of 10 thin film transistors and 1 capacitor, and the time division driving method is adopted to prevent the negative effect of display signals on the touch sensing. Two pre‐charging nodes are employed for reducing the uniformity degradation of gate pulses over time. In particular, the proposed circuit connects a drain of the first pre‐charging node's pull‐up thin film transistor (TFT) to the positive supply voltage instead of clock signals. This facilitates to lower coupling noises as well as to clock power consumption. The simulation program with an integrated circuit emphasis is conducted for the proposed circuit with low temperature poly‐silicon TFTs. The positive threshold voltage that shifts up to 12 V at the first pre‐charging pull‐up TFT can be compensated for without the uniformity degradation of gate pulses. For a 60‐Hz full‐HD display with a 120‐Hz reporting rate of touches, the clock power consumption of the proposed gate driver circuit is estimated as 7.13 mW with 160 stages of shift registers. In addition, the noise level at the first pre‐charging node is lowered to ?28.95 dB compared with 2.37 dB of the previous circuit.     

Flexible AMOLEDs with low‐temperature‐processed TFT backplane technologies

Developments of backplane technologies, which are one of the challenging topics, toward the realization of flexible active matrix organic light‐emitting diodes (AMOLEDs) are discussed in this paper. Plastic substrates including polyimide are considered as a good candidate for substrates of flexible AMOLEDs. The fabrication process flows based on plastic substrates are explained. Limited by the temperature that plastic substrates can sustain, TFT technologies with maximum processing temperature below 400 °C must be developed. Considering the stringent requirements of AMOLEDs, both oxide thin‐film transistors (TFTs) and ultra‐low‐temperature poly‐silicon TFTs (U‐LTPS TFTs) are investigated. First, oxide TFTs with representative indium gallium zinc oxide channel layer are fabricated on polyimide substrates. The threshold voltage shifts under bias stress and under bending test are small. Thus, a 4.0‐in. flexible AMOLED is demonstrated with indium gallium zinc oxide TFTs, showing good panel performance and flexibility. Further, the oxide TFTs based on indium tin zinc oxide channel layer with high mobility and good stability are discussed. The mobility can be higher than 20 cm²/Vs, and threshold voltage shifts under both voltage stress and current stress are almost negligible, proving the potential of oxide TFT technology. On the other hand, the U‐LTPS TFTs are also developed. It is confirmed that dehydrogenation and dopant activation can be effectively performed at a temperature within 400 °C. The performance of U‐LTPS TFTs on polyimide is compatible to those of TFTs on glass. Also, the performance of devices on polyimide can be kept intact after devices de‐bonded from glass carrier. Finally, a 4.3‐in. flexible AMOLED is also demonstrated with U‐LTPS TFTs.     

基于MiniGUI的IAL定制及触摸屏驱动程序开发

在嵌入式系统开发中,MiniGUI是典型的图形用户界面系统,触摸屏是常见的输入设备,而输入抽象层作为两者的结合点在人机交互开发中起着重要作用.在分析IAL的数据结构与源代码的基础上,通过修改已有的dummy代码和设置触摸屏控制器相关的寄存器的值,实现了具体的IAL和相关的触摸屏驱动程序,该程序很好地满足了嵌入式应用的需要.     

Improving the flexibility of AMOLED display through modulating thickness of layer stack structure

A robust methodology is established to predict the critical bending radius of a flexible AMOLED. According to the methodology, the critical bending radius of display manufactured by the same process could be reduced from 7 mm to 4 mm by modulating the layer stack thickness.     

Flexible OLED display with 620°C LTPS TFT and touch sensor manufactured by weak bonding method

By weak bonding method, the first organic light‐emitting diode (OLED) display with 620°C low‐temperature poly‐silicon (LTPS) thin film transistor (TFT) and touch sensor, without polyimide (PI) substrate, formed on glass substrates is transferred to non‐PI flexible substrates. After transfer, the display image is free from defect, and touch sensor functions normally. Compared with device made on PI substrate, the advantages of device stability and pitch variation by transferring are shown.     

Carbon‐nanotube film on plastic as transparent electrode for resistive touch screens

Abstract— Carbon‐nanotube (CNT) films on plastic are incorporated as the touch electrode in a four‐wire resistive touch panel. Single‐point actuation tests show superior mechanical performance to ITO touch electrodes, with no loss of device functionality up to 3 million actuations. Sliding‐stylus‐pen tests reveal no loss of device linearity after 1 million stylus cycles. A CNT refractive index of ～1.55 leads to CNT touch panels with low reflection (<9% over the visible range) without costly anti‐reflective coatings. CNT films on PET currently have 86% total transmission (including the PET) over the visible and 600 Ω/□, with lab scale tests giving 88% at 500 Ω/□. CNT films are neutrally colored (a^* ～ 0, b^* ～ 1.5), low haze (<1%), uniform, and both chemically and environmentally stable. Unidym's solution‐based coatings can be printed directly onto both flexible and rigid polycarbonate using solution coating processes. Unidym films can be patterned using subtractive methods such as laser ablation with resolution down to 10 μm, or additive methods such as patterned gravure. CNTs are grown, purified, formulated into inks, and coated using scalable processes, allowing films to be attractive from a cost perspective as well.     

Suppression of buried oxide induced variability on digital performance of GeOI pMOSFETs using substrate bias scheme

Random variation in buried oxide thickness strongly affects the digital performance of ultra-thin body germanium-on-insulator MOSFETs. Dependencies of threshold voltage, ON-current, OFF-current and subthreshold slope of ultra-thin body germanium-on-insulator MOSFETs on three different BOX dielectrics are examined by employing well-calibrated Synopsys TCAD. The variation of threshold voltage and ON-current becomes less sensitive with high-k BOX dielectrics whereas smaller variation of OFF-current is observed for the device with low-k BOX dielectrics. The subthreshold slope remains almost unaltered for all BOX dielectrics. Furthermore, a positive substrate bias is found to suppress variability of digital performance parameters of GeOI p-MOSFETs.

     

基于Atmel QTouch的ATmega48感应按键设计

提出一种基于Atmel公司的QTouch技术和ATmega48单片机的感应按键设计方案.硬件上,根据应用系统的要求,灵活选择需要的单片机I/O口作为感应按键输入口;软件上,根据Atmel公司提供的函数库,将所选的I/O口配置成感应按键输入口,调用QTouch函数库接口对感应按键信号进行采集.实验结果表明,该方案设计简单...     

A full integration of electromagnetic resonance sensor and capacitive touch sensor into LCD

We have developed a transmissive and reflective LCD that integrates electromagnetic resonance (EMR) and capacitive touch sensors using existing in‐cell process. This development has been achieved by utilizing our hybrid‐in‐cell technology with low resistance material for the RX, which is an improvement of over 80% compared with conventional indium thin oxide (ITO) material. For EMR detection, we have slightly modified the TX layer used for capacitive touch sensing, by making a coil loop that generates a magnetic field on the panel. The direction of current on the coil can be modulated by the low‐temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) circuit. Our in‐cell touch sensing has separately assigned timings for display and touch units. This time‐sharing method provides immunity from display noise and consequently better signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) than other out‐cell types. In parallel, we have developed a new controller that can support both EMR and capacitive sensing as a one‐chip solution, with the capability of maximizing signal levels lowering noise and detecting the frequency precisely when there is pressure on the pen tip. Our in‐cell technologies contribute not only a good SNR for EMR pen but also the added benefits for thin design, lightweight panel, compared with conventional LCD techniques.     

Capacitive touchscreen‐integrated electrostatic tactile display with localized sensation

An electrostatic tactile display with a projected capacitive touchscreen integrated into a single panel was demonstrated. Every electrode on the panel is driven for both tactile presentation and the touch sensor. The functions are both time and spatially multiplexed, and a reference–node‐driven high‐pass filter in the touch controller filters out the noise from the tactile driving signals.     

Achieving high sensing in 0.5 nA for the driving pixel currents in AMOLEDs with settling time of 7 µs by a new external current sensing circuit

A new external current sensing circuit with baseline compensation for the active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) display is developed herein to achieve the sensing precision of 0.5 nA in pixel with 7 µs of settling time. Current sensing circuit incorporates a new push–pull transient current feedforward whereas the current analog to digital converter (CADC) based digital baseline current compensation incorporates an 11-bit current digital-to-analog converter, a current comparator and a digital control circuit with an 11-bit successive approximation register. The proposed integrated mixed signal IC drives a 6T1C pixel-based AMOLED panel with one horizontal time of 7.7 µs at a scan frequency of 60 Hz. The design readout chip can simultaneously sense and compensate TFT baseline current variation. The readout circuit and the baseline compensation circuit are implemented in the integrated chip with chip area of 125 μm × 46 μm and fabricated via TSMC T18 process. With the standard 3.3 V supply, experimental result shows that the overall power consumption of the chip is 988 µW watt. The minimum LSB current for the CADC is 10 nA and the maximum achievable sampling rate is 500 KS/s. The measured INL and DNL of CADC is 0.84 and 0.98 respectively. Despite of heavy data line parasitic capacitances (2.6 KΩ/20 pF) of the AMOLED display, experimental results show that the proposed circuit can sense 0.5 nA current within 7 µs of settling time. The sensing precision of 0.5 nA within 7 µs are the best among all reported literature to date whereas the current sense range (0.5–500 nA), system sampling rate (142 KS/s), INL (0.84) and DNL (0.98) of the CADC is approximately comparable among all reported.

     

A 0.6 V 117 nW high performance energy efficient system-on-chip (SoC) CMOS temperature sensor in 0.18 µm CMOS for aerospace applications

This research article presents and describes a novel design with improved performance low power consumption threshold voltage based CMOS thermal sensor for aerospace applications. The proposed temperature sensor utilizes the change in behavior of threshold voltage of MOSFET with variation in temperature. The challenge while designing the temperature sensor was to achieve the linearize output voltage with respect to change in temperature. Process corner analysis has been done to check the robustness of the circuit while performance analysis and sensitivity of the temperature sensor have been verified in the occurrence of parasitic. The proposed temperature sensor is featured with low power consumption, less power supply voltage utilization, high performance and sensitivity with inaccuracy as low as possible. The presented temperature sensor utilizes an active area of 18 µm × 9.85 µm with 117 nW power consumption. An improved linear performance with an inaccuracy of merely − 0.01 to + 0.47 °C over a wide temperature range of − 20 to + 120 °C is presented here. The sensitivity of proposed temperature sensor is found to be as high as 0.77 mV/°C. The proposed temperature sensor is realized and tested in Cadence virtuoso mixed signal design atmosphere using 0.18 µm CMOS technology and further investigated with support of tool from Mentor graphics. The engaged area of pad-limited chip is measured to be 0.96 mm².

     

Fast response and recovery of nano-porous silicon based gas sensor

Fusion of the transduction mechanism in micro and macro nanopores of porous silicon (PS) was employed to fabricate an MEMS-based aliphatic alcohol impedance sensor. The presence of a nanopore network on silicon was confirmed by the SEM image. The morphology of the PS nanopores was roughly distributed in a uniform manner. The performance of the sensor was studied using Impedance spectroscopy at room temperature. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and an equivalent circuit analysis of the small amplitude (± 10 mV) AC impedance measurements (frequency range 0.1 Hz–1 kHz) at ambient temperature were carried out. The Sensing layer consists of nanopores (45.30–71.13 nm), micropores (0.95–5 µm), and comb type alumina electrodes with the micro PS layer having a thickness of about 0.2 µm and the macro PS layer having a thickness of about 4 µm. These results were used to assess the effect of the micro PS and macro PS of the particulate layer on the conductivity of the given aliphatic gases. The measured impedance was approximately 2.3e5 for the micro PS, and 3.22e5 macro PS for 8 ppm of gas injected into the gas chamber. The grain boundary resistance increases with an increase in the concentration of butane, benzene, and methane, which ranges from 2 to 16 ppm.

     

Simulation and characterization of dynamic contact in a MEMS passive vibration threshold sensor

A micro-machined passive vibration threshold sensor with a compliant stationary electrode has been designed, simulated and characterized. Bridge-type elastic beams as the compliant stationary electrode is adopted to improve the contact effect of the vibration threshold sensor and prolong its contact time. The dynamic contact between the two electrodes of the micro-machined vibration threshold sensor is simulated and analyzed by finite-element method (FEM). It’s indicated that a ‘skip contact’ phenomenon occurred during the switching on, which has been described and successfully explained in this paper. Deformations and stress distributions of the compliant electrode during contact under 55 g half-sine applied shock acceleration is also simulated. An all-metal cap that can undergo 6.08 × 10⁵ Pa has been designed and fabricated by UV-LIGA process for package of the vibration threshold sensor. A drop hammer test of the fabricated vibration threshold sensor has been done, which is in accordance with the FEM simulation of dynamic contact process. The measured response time of the threshold sensor is about 0.3 ms under 55 g applied acceleration and two contact times in the skip contact are 16 and 4 µs, respectively, which are in agreement with simulated results. The obtained natural frequency of the vibration threshold sensor by a vibration test is about 810 Hz in the first model, which also agrees with the model.     

Novel analog feedback current programming architecture compatible with 2‐transistor 1‐capacitor pixel for active matrix organic light‐emitting diode displays

A new feedback current programming architecture is described, which is compatible with active matrix organic light‐emitting diode (AMOLED) displays having the 2T1C pixel structure. The new pixel programming approach is compatible with all TFT technologies and can compensate for non‐uniformities in both threshold voltage and carrier mobility of the pixel OLED drive TFT. Based on circuit simulations, a pixel drive current of less than 10 nA can be programmed in less than 50 µ. This new approach can be implemented within an AMOLED external or integrated display data driver.     

Active stylus‐touch discrimination scheme based on anomaly detection algorithm

This paper proposes an anomaly detection (AD) algorithm that can discriminate stylus‐touch based on capacitive touch screen panel. The digital value acquired from an analog‐to‐digital converter (ADC) are transferred to an autoencoder including an encoder and a decoder. While the encoder classifies only two classes of a no‐touch and a finger‐touch, the decoder reconstructs the similar sequence to the input one according to the encoder's decision. Because the touch sequences caused by the stylus are not trained, the large difference between input and output sequences is used to discriminate the stylus‐touch from finger‐touch and no‐touch. The proposed method is evaluated by means of an 8‐inch capacitive touch panel, an AD touch detection board, and a stylus board. At the sequence length of 16 touch samples, the measured bit error rate (BER) of less than 10^?6 for each touch case is equivalent to the previous support vector machine (SVM) scheme whereas the number of multipliers is dramatically reduced to 16, compared with 400 of the previous SVM method.