METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PARALLEL SCANNING AND DATA PROCESSING FOR TOUCH SENSE ARRAYS

• US 20140118296A1
• Filed: 07/12/2013
• Published: 05/01/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Monterey Research, LLC (Vector Capital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (Infineon Technologies AG)
• Inventors: Yarosh, Andriy, Ogirko, Roman, Pirogov, Oleksandr, Kremin, Victor, Sharamaga, Roman, Konovalov, Anton, Maharyta, Andriy, Mohammed, Haneef
• Granted Patent: US 9,122,344 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04166 Details of scanning methods, e.g. sampling time, grouping of sub areas or time sharing with display driving Synchronisation with the driving of the display or the backlighting unit to avoid interferences generated internally G06F3/04184
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/3851 from multiple instruction streams, e.g. multistreaming

Abstract

A parallel pipelining method of operation of a touch sense controller for processing data into a touch map is disclosed. A current full scan of response signals to at least one excitation of a touch sense array is received using a first thread of a processing device. The current full scan of response signals is processed using a second thread of the processing device to render a touch map corresponding to the touch sense array. A next full scan of response signals is received using the first thread. Receiving the next full scan and processing the current full scan are performed substantially simultaneously.

Claims

1-20. -20. (canceled)

21. A method comprising:

receiving a current set of measurements a touch sense array using a first functional block of a processing device;

processing the current set of measurements using a second functional block to render a touch map corresponding to the touch sense array; and

performing a next set of measurements of the touch sense array using the first functional block,

wherein the performing the next set of measurements and processing the current set of measurements are performed substantially concurrently.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the first functional block is a sequencer and is not part of a central processing unit (CPU) of the processing device.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the second functional block is a digital filter block (DFB) of the processing device and is not part of a central processing unit (CPU) of the processing device.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein the second functional block is a software thread of the CPU of the processing device.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein the first functional block is a first software thread of a central processing unit (CPU) of the processing device and the second functional block is a second software thread of the CPU.

26. The method of claim 21, wherein the processing the current set of measurements is initiated in response to receiving an interrupt corresponding to completion of receiving the current set of measurements.

27. The method of claim 21, wherein the performing the next set of measurements is initiated in response to receiving an interrupt corresponding to completion of processing of the current set of measurements.

28. The method of claim 23, further comprising storing data corresponding to individual slots of response signals of the current or next set of measurements in corresponding single buffers.

29. The method of claim 28, further comprising combining the single buffers into a full sense array raw data buffer in order of slots.

30. The method of claim 29, further comprising directly transferring the combined data in the full sense array raw data buffer to memory using direct memory access (DMA).

31. A circuit comprising:

a first functional block configured to receive a current set of measurements of a touch sense array and configured to perform a next set of measurements of the touch sense array; and

a second functional block configured to process the current set of measurements to render a touch map corresponding to the touch sense array,

wherein the next set of measurements is performed by the first functional block substantially concurrently with the second functional block processing the current set of measurements.

32. The circuit of claim 31, wherein the first functional block is a sequencer and is not part of a central processing unit (CPU).

33. The circuit of claim 31, wherein the second functional block is a digital filter block (DFB) of a processing device and is not part of a central processing unit (CPU).

34. The circuit of claim 31, wherein the first functional block and the second functional block share at least one common hardware element.

35. The circuit of claim 31, further comprising a central processing unit (CPU) configured to initiate processing the current set of measurements in response to an interrupt corresponding to completion of receiving the current set of measurements from the first functional block.

36. The circuit of claim 31, further comprising a central processing unit (CPU) configured to initiate processing the next set of measurements in response to an interrupt corresponding to completion of receiving the current set of measurements from the first functional block.

37. The circuit of claim 31, further comprising:

a memory;

a direct memory access (DMA) controller coupled to the memory and the first functional block, wherein the DMA controller is configured to transfer data corresponding to individual response signals of the current or next set of measurements to corresponding single buffers in the memory.

38. The circuit of claim 37, wherein the DMA controller is further configured to combine the single buffers into a full sense array raw data buffer in order of slots in the memory.

39. An apparatus, comprising:

a processing device configured to detect a conductive object proximate to a touch sense array, wherein the processing device comprises;

a first functional block configured to receive a current set of measurements of a touch sense array using a first functional block and configured to perform a next set of measurements of the touch sense array using the first functional block; and

a second functional block configured to process the current set of measurements to render a touch map corresponding to the touch sense array,

wherein the next set of measurements is performed by the first functional block substantially concurrently with the second functional block processing the current set of measurements.

40. The apparatus of claim 39, wherein the first functional block and the second functional block are part of a central processing unit (CPU) of the processing device, wherein the receiving the current set of measurements and the performing the next set of measurements comprises executing a first software thread of the CPU, and wherein the processing the current set of measurements comprises processing the current set of measurements using a second software thread of the CPU.