ALWAYS-ON SENSOR DEVICE FOR HUMAN TOUCH

• US 20170053152A1
• Filed: 08/17/2015
• Published: 02/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/17/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Invensense Incorporated (TDK Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Invensense Incorporated (TDK Corporation)
• Inventors: Medina, Eitan A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,928,398 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3231 Monitoring the presence, absence or movement of users
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3262 Power saving in digitizer or tablet
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3265 Power saving in display device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04105 Pressure sensors for measuring the pressure or force exerted on the touch surface without providing the touch position
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04106 Multi-sensing digitiser, i.e. digitiser using at least two different sensing technologies simultaneously or alternatively, e.g. for detecting pen and finger, for saving power or for improving position detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/043 using propagating acoustic waves
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0251 using monitoring of local events, e.g. events related to user activity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0254 detecting a user operation or a tactile contact or a motion of the device
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Always-on or nearly always-on sensing of human touch at a device is provided. The sensing is split into a low-power detection stage and a full-power analysis stage, where the detection stage is implemented continually or nearly continually and causes system circuitry to perform analysis of the human touch after the low-power detection stage has confirmed the human touch. The sensing permits avoiding the reliance on physical actuation of a trigger prior to analysis of human touch.

Claims

1. A device, comprising:

always-on circuitry configured to implement a first stage comprising first operations including;

detecting touch of a specific area of a touch-screen display device;

predicting that the touch is associated with a human finger based on a touch criterion; and

in response to the predicting,

generating a control signal configured to cause a system circuitry to wake-up from a power-off mode or a sleep mode; and

sending the control signal to the system circuitry; and

the system circuitry configured to implement a second stage in response to the control signal, the second stage comprising second operations including;

analyzing biometric data of a human body associated with the human finger.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the predicting comprises at least one of:

determining that a force greater than a first predetermined threshold was exerted on a surface of the touch-screen display device;

determining that a pressure greater than a second predetermined threshold was exerted on the surface of the touch-screen display device;

determining that the specific area overlaps with a number of pixels of the touch-screen display device within a predetermined range;

or

determining that the touch caused a predetermined frequency response.

3. The device of claim 1, wherein the first operations further comprise:

receiving the biometric data from a biometric sensor communicatively coupled to the always-on circuitry.

4. The device of claim 3, wherein the first operations further comprise:

sending the biometric data to the processor from the always-on circuitry.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein the second operations further comprise:

determining, using an outcome of the analyzing, one or more of a blood pressure of the human body, a pulse of the human body, a blood flow parameter of the human body, or a blood glucose level of the human body.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein the second operations further comprise:

determining, using an outcome of the analyzing, a fingerprint of the human finger.

7. The device of claim 1, wherein the detecting comprises static capacitive sensing of the touch, dynamic capacitive sensing of the touch, optical imaging of the touch, ultrasonic imaging of the touch, or pressure sensing of the touch.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein the predicting comprises:

determining that a first frequency response of a mass that causes the touch to acoustic sound corresponds to a second frequency response of the human finger to the acoustic sound.

9. The device of claim 1, wherein the always-on circuitry comprises an application specific integrated circuit.

10. The device of claim 1, wherein the always-on circuitry comprises a register-transfer level processing circuit.

11. The device of claim 1, wherein the system circuitry comprises an application processor or a processor of a host device.

12. The device of claim 1, wherein the always-on circuitry and the system circuitry are configured in a single semiconductor die.

13. The device of claim 1, wherein the always-on circuitry is configured in a first semiconductor die and the system circuitry is configured in a second semiconductor die.

14. The device of claim 1, wherein the always-on circuitry and the system circuitry are configured within a mobile device.

15. The device of claim 1, wherein the always-on circuitry and the system circuitry are configured within a wearable device.

16. A method, comprising:

first stage operations including;

detecting, by an always-on circuitry, touch of a specific area of a touch-screen display device;

determining, by the always-on circuitry, that there is a probability greater than a predetermined threshold value that the touch is associated with a human finger; and

in response to the determining,

generating, by the always-on circuitry, a control signal configured to cause a processor to wake-up from a power-off mode or a sleep mode; and

sending, by the always-on circuitry, the control signal to the processor; and

performing second stage operations in response to the control signal, the second stage operations including;

analyzing, by a system circuitry, biometric data of a human body associated with the human finger.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the first stage operations further include:

receiving, by the power-on circuitry, the biometric data from a biometric sensor communicatively coupled to the always-on circuitry.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the first stage operations further include:

sending the biometric data to the processor by the always-on circuitry.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the second stage operations comprise:

determining, by the system circuitry, using an outcome of the analyzing, one or more of a blood pressure of the human body, a pulse of the human body, a blood flow parameter of the human body, or a blood glucose level of the human body.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the second state operations further include:

determining, by the system circuitry, using an outcome of the analyzing, a fingerprint of the human finger.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the detecting comprises utilizing static capacitive sensing, utilizing dynamic capacitive sensing, utilizing optical imaging, utilizing acoustic imaging, or utilizing pressure sensing.

22. The method of claim 16, wherein the determining comprises:

determining that a first frequency response of a mass that causes the touch to acoustic sound corresponds to a second frequency response of the human finger to the acoustic sound.

23. A machine-readable storage device having executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause a device to perform operations comprising:

first stage operations including;

detecting touch of a specific area of a touch-screen display device;

determining that there is a probability greater than a predetermined threshold value that the touch is associated with a human finger; and

in response to the determining,

generating a control signal configured to cause a processor to wake-up from a power-off mode or a sleep mode; and

sending the control signal to the processor; and

performing second stage operations in response to the control signal, the second stage operations including;

analyzing biometric data of a human body associated with the human finger.