Capacitive multi-touch system and method of controlling the same

• US 9,104,267 B2
• Filed: 11/25/2013
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Choi, Kwang-Ho, Kim, Sang-Woo, Lee, Chang-Ju
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Gene W
• Application Number:
  US14/088,533
• Publication Number:
  US 20140152614A1
• Time in Patent Office: 624 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04104 Multi-touch detection in digitiser, i.e. details about the simultaneous detection of a plurality of touching locations, e.g. multiple fingers or pen and finger
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04182 Filtering of noise external to the device and not generated by digitiser components
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0446 using a grid-like structure of electrodes in at least two directions, e.g. using row and column electrodes

Abstract

A capacitive multi-touch system includes a touch sensor pane, a front-end circuit, and a digital signal processor. The touch sensor panel generates a capacitance signal corresponding to a touch input. The front-end circuit converts the capacitance signal to a sensing channel signal. The digital signal processor receives a common voltage (V_COM) from a display device, calculates a noise interval of two neighboring noise peaks of the common voltage, and performs a noise filtering operation on the sensing channel signal using a noise filter path. The noise filter path is selected from a plurality of noise filter paths based on the noise interval.

Claims

1. A capacitive multi-touch system, comprising:

a touch sensor panel configured to generate a capacitance signal corresponding to a touch input;

a front-end circuit configured to convert the capacitance signal to a sensing channel signal; and

a digital signal processor configured to;

receive a common voltage (V_COM) from a display device, calculate a noise interval of two neighboring noise peaks of the common voltage, and

perform a noise filtering operation on the sensing channel signal using a noise filter path,

wherein the noise filter path is selected from a plurality of noise filter paths based on the noise interval, and

wherein the noise interval is measured in a frequency domain of the common voltage.

2. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 1, wherein the front-end circuit comprises:

a C-V converter configured to convert the capacitance signal to a first voltage signal;

an anti-aliasing filter configured to eliminate noise of the first voltage signal to generate a second voltage signal; and

an analog-to-digital converter configured to convert the second voltage signal to the sensing channel signal.

3. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 1, wherein the digital signal processor comprises:

a display noise analyzer configured to calculate the noise interval and generate a filter selecting signal based on the noise interval; and

a demultiplexer configured to route the sensing channel signal to one of the plurality of filtering paths in response to the filter selecting signal.

4. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 3, wherein the plurality of filtering paths comprises:

a first filtering path having a digital filter,

a second filtering path having a decimation filter and the digital filter, and

a third filtering path having an anti-harmonic filter and a moving average filter.

5. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 4, wherein the decimation filter is configured to perform a decimation filtering operation on the sensing channel signal received from the demultiplexer, the anti-harmonic filter is configured to eliminate harmonics of the sensing channel signal, and the moving average filter is configured to calculate a moving average of an output signal of the anti-harmonic filter.

6. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 3, wherein the display noise analyzer comprises:

a first Fourier transformer configured to perform a short-time Fourier transform on the common voltage; and

a blank detector configured to detect a blank from an output signal of the first Fourier transformer;

a peak/interval detector configured to detect the noise interval, wherein the noise interval corresponds to an interval between two neighboring peaks of an output signal of the blank detector; and

a filter selector configured to generate the filter selecting signal based on the noise interval.

7. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 3, wherein the display noise analyzer comprises:

an adaptive filter configured to perform an adaptive filtering operation on the common voltage;

a second Fourier transformer configured to perform a point Fourier transform on an output signal of the adaptive filter;

a peak/interval detector configured to detect the noise interval, wherein the noise interval corresponds to an interval between two neighboring peaks of an output signal of the second Fourier transformer; and

a filter selector configured to generate the filter selecting signal based on the noise interval.

8. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 4, wherein the second filtering path further comprises an anti-aliasing filter configured to eliminate an aliasing noise of the sensing channel signal, wherein the anti-aliasing filter is disposed between the demultiplexer and the decimation filter.

9. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 1,

if the noise interval is greater than a bandwidth of a digital filter, the noise filter path is a first noise filter path including the digital filter,

if the noise interval is smaller than the bandwidth of the first filter and double the noise interval is greater than the bandwidth of the first filter, the noise filter path is a second noise filter path including a decimation filter and the digital filter, and

if double the noise interval is smaller than the bandwidth of the first filter, the noise filter path is a third noise filter path including a moving average filter.

10. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 9, wherein the moving average filter is configured to control a moving average value using a tap.

11. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 9, wherein the third noise filter path further includes an anti-harmonic filter, wherein the anti-harmonic filter is disposed between the demultiplexer and the moving average filter.

12. A method of controlling a capacitive multi-touch system, the method comprising:

generating a capacitance signal corresponding to an input touch;

converting the capacitance signal to a sensing channel signal;

analyzing a noise spectrum of a common voltage (VCOM) to generate a filter selection signal;

performing a filtering operation on the sensing channel signal using a noise filtering operation selected by the filter selection signal,

wherein the analyzing of the noise spectrum further comprises;

calculating a noise interval of the common voltage;

comparing the noise interval to a bandwidth of a first filter; and

generating the filter selection signal based on the comparison result.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein

if the noise interval is greater than the bandwidth of the first filter, the filter selection signal selects the first filter,

if the noise interval is smaller than the bandwidth of the first filter and double the noise interval is greater than the bandwidth of the first filter, the filter selection signal selects a decimation filter, and

if double the noise interval is smaller than the bandwidth of the first filter, the filter selection signal selects a moving average filter.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the decimation filter is coupled to the first filter, wherein the first filter includes a digital filter.

15. The method according to claim 13, wherein the moving average filter is coupled to an anti-harmonic filter, wherein the anti-harmonic filter is configured to eliminate harmonics from the sensing channel signal, wherein and an output of the anti-harmonic filter is inputted to the moving average filter, and wherein the moving average filter is configured to calculate a moving average of the output of the anti-harmonic filter.

16. A capacitive multi-touch system, comprising:

a display device configured to operate using a common voltage;

a touch sensor panel disposed on the display device and configured to generate a sensing input signal corresponding to a touch input; and

a digital signal processor configured to analyze noise characteristics of the common voltage and perform a noise filtering operation on the sensing input signal based on the noise characteristics,

wherein the noise characteristics include a noise interval of two adjacent noise peaks of the common voltage, wherein the noise interval is measured in a frequency domain of the common voltage.

17. The capacitive multi-touch system of claim 16, wherein

if the noise interval is greater than a bandwidth of a digital filter, the digital signal processor is configured to perform the noise filtering operation using a first noise filter path including the digital filter,

if the noise interval is smaller than the bandwidth of the first filter and double the noise interval is greater than the bandwidth of the first filter, the digital signal processor is configured to perform the noise filtering operation using a second noise filter path including a decimation filter and the digital filter, and

if double the noise interval is smaller than the bandwidth of the first filter, the digital signal processor is configured to perform the noise filtering operation using a third noise filter path including a moving average filter.