Zytronic has launched a new generation of multi-touch controllers, which are claimed to enable ultra-narrow inactive borders and improved compatibility with contactless systems.
The new Zytronic ZXY500touch controllers allow touch sensors to be designed with substantially reduced non-active borders. For example, a 55” diagonal touch sensor can now be designed with sub 10mm borders. A further advantage of the new ZXY500 controller is its compatibility with contactless technologies increasingly being integrated alongside displays to enable payments, customer tracking and battery charging technologies. RFID, NFC and Qi phone charging all generate wireless signals that can interfere with the operation of conventional touch screens, but the new controller is claimed to have “industry leading” signal-to-noise ratios and sophisticated algorithms that change dynamically to reject electromagnetic interference in the operating environment. Zytronic said that it tested each of these technologies with the ZXY500 controller and demonstrated that they can be implemented very close to active touch area without impairing the performance of the touch screen.
The ZXY500 can support up to 80 simultaneous touches enabling true multi-user interactivity and the implementation of improved palm rejection functionality. It also features increased speed, updating touch co-ordinates in just 1ms at the controller output, reducing touch latency by a third compared to previous generation controllers and improving the user experience. Each channel on the device can be configured via firmware to operate in transmit or receive mode. This feature further enhances performance in applications where touchscreens of unusual aspect ratios are used.
Designed specifically for use with Zytronic touch sensors, the ZXY500 works on displays from 5” to around 86” diagonal, thanks to its 40V on-board drive signal coupled with new proprietary touch sensing algorithms. Because of its noise immunity, the ZXY500 allows the air gap between the display and the sensor to be decreased, reducing optical parallax and improving the appearance of the display. It can reliably detect touches through over 8mm of overlaying cover glass, the company said, even with gloved hands and is unaffected by rain, dirt, oil or ice on the surface of the touch sensor.
Despite the high drive signal, the controller and touch sensor together can be powered from a 5V USB port, eliminating the need for a separate power supply. The ZXY500 is offered with USB output as standard, but also has options to add RS232, I2C, SPI and interfaces, to simplify system integration for industrial and medical applications. The smallest controller in the new controller family has been significantly reduced in size to just 61 x 64mm for the 64-channel version. The flexible printed circuits (FPC) connecting the touch sensors to the new controllers have also been reduced to just 120mm in length, further helping to achieve a compact overall touch system design.
Zytronic said that it invested over $1 million in the development of a new ASIC, which has enabled a reduction in the cost and size of the controller and the elimination of much of the obsolescence risk associated with the use of third-party components for core parts of the design. The new ASIC’s are also available together with a STM 32-bit ARM Cortex microprocessor loaded with Zytronic’s proprietary touch detection algorithms as a ‘chipset’. Customers who sign a special licence agreement may then be supplied with the core chip set together with the controller schematics and bill-of-materials. Zytronic’s engineers will then work with the client to design the ZXY500 controller directly onto a mother board within their device or system.
Zytronic is releasing a family of three ZXY500 controllers optimised for different sizes of touch interface. The 64-channel ZXY500-U-OFF-64 is recommended for sensors of 5” to 20” diagonal, the 128-channel ZXY500-U-OFF-128 for sensors of 20” to 55” and the 256-channel ZXY500-U-OFF-256 for sizes above 55”.
