Capacitive fingerprint sensor with quadrature demodulator and multiphase scanning

• US 9,542,588 B2
• Filed: 03/27/2015
• Issued: 01/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (Infineon Technologies AG)
• Original Assignee: Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (Infineon Technologies AG)
• Inventors: Kremin, Viktor, Walsh, Paul M., Hosseini, Kaveh, Johal, Jaskarn Singh, Hancioglu, Erhan, Ozbek, Onur
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Son
• Assistant Examiner(s): LE, THANG XUAN
• Application Number:
  US14/672,036
• Publication Number:
  US 20160140376A1
• Time in Patent Office: 655 Days
• Field of Search: 324/658, 324/686, 324/519, 324/661, 345/173, 345/174
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 27/2605 Measuring capacitance capacitive sensors G01D5/24
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/1306 non-optical, e.g. ultrasonic or capacitive sensing
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/1376 Matching features related to ridge properties or fingerprint texture

Abstract

A fingerprint sensing circuit, system, and method is disclosed. The fingerprint sensor maybe include a plurality of inputs coupled to a plurality of fingerprint sensing electrodes and to an analog front end. The analog front end may be configured to generate at least one digital value in response to a capacitance of at least one of the plurality of fingerprint sensing electrodes. Additionally, the analog front end may include a quadrature demodulation circuit to generate at least one demodulated value for processing by a channel engine. The channel engine may generate a capacitance result value that is based, in part, on the demodulated value and is stored in a memory.

Claims

1. A fingerprint sensing circuit comprising:

at least two inputs of a plurality of inputs coupled to a plurality of fingerprint sensing electrodes and to an analog front end (AFE), wherein the at least two inputs are coupled differentially to the AFE through a multiplexor, the AFE configured to generate at least one digital value in response to a mutual capacitance between the at least two of the plurality of fingerprint sensing electrodes and at least two drive electrodes, wherein the AFE comprises a quadrature demodulation circuit configured to generate at least one demodulated value;

a channel engine configured to generate a capacitance result value based on the at least one demodulated value; and

a memory configured to store the mutual capacitance result generated by the channel engine.

2. The fingerprint sensing circuit of claim 1, wherein the quadrature demodulation circuit comprises:

at least two demodulator inputs, each input coupled to a modifier, the modifier driven by a phase-shifted reference signal;

a plurality of low pass filters coupled to an output of the multipliers, and

a plurality of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) coupled to an output of the low pass filters, the ADCs configured to generate a digital value derived from a capacitance on the at least one of the plurality of fingerprint sensing electrodes.

3. The fingerprint sensing circuit of claim 2, wherein the low pass filters are reconfigurable for each of the plurality of fingerprint sensing electrodes, the low pass filters configured to maximize signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

4. The fingerprint sensing circuit of claim 1, further comprising a variable gain amplifier coupled between the plurality of fingerprint sensing electrodes and the demodulation circuit.

5. The fingerprint sensing circuit of claim 1, wherein the differential outputs are combined by the channel engine.

6. The fingerprint sensing circuit of claim 5, wherein the combination includes:

a squaring step, wherein each of the outputs is squared;

a summing step, wherein the squared outputs are combined;

a square root step, wherein the square root of the combined output is generated.

7. The fingerprint sensing circuit of claim 1, wherein the plurality of fingerprint sensing electrodes includes:

a first plurality of drive (TX) electrodes; and

a second plurality of receive (RX) electrodes, wherein;

at least two of the first plurality of TX electrodes are driven concurrently, and

a receive signal on at least two of the second plurality of RX electrodes are received concurrently, the receive signal generated from a current induced on the at least two of the second plurality of RX electrodes in response to the a TX signal on the at least two of the first plurality of TX electrodes.

8. A method comprising:

receiving a pair of differential signals from at least two sensing electrodes of a plurality of sensing electrodes of a fingerprint sensing array disposed along a first axis in response to a drive signal from a pair of drive electrodes disposed substantially orthogonal to and intersecting the at least two sensing electrodes, the received signal derived from the drive signal on the pair of drive electrodes and a mutual capacitance between the drive electrodes and the sensing electrodes;

modifying the differential signal with at least one phase-shifted reference signal to produce a phase-shifted signal;

converting the phase-shifted signal to a phase-shifted digital value; and

processing the digital value to produce a result representative of the mutual capacitance between one of the pair of sensing electrodes and one of the pair of drive electrodes.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the signal for each of the plurality of sensing electrodes is modified by at least one phase-shifted signal, and wherein the phase-shifted reference signals are shifted 90 degrees relative to each other.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the phase-shifted signal is filtered by a reconfigurable low pass filter prior to conversion to the phase-shifted digital value.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the processing of the digital value comprises:

squaring the phase-shifted digital value;

summing the phase-shifted digital value with at least one other phase-shifted digital value; and

calculating a square root of the sum of the phase-shifted digital values.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the digital value stored in a memory and processed to determine the presence of a ridge or valley of a fingerprint on the fingerprint sensing array.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the receiving of the signal from at least plurality of sensing electrodes of the fingerprint sensing array is controlled by a multiplexer coupled between the at least one sensing electrode and an analog front end (AFE).

14. A fingerprint detection system comprising:

a plurality of drive (TX) electrodes disposed along a first axis;

a plurality of receive (RX) electrodes disposed along a second axis, wherein the TX electrodes and the RX electrodes are configured to have a mutual capacitance at each intersection of the TX electrodes and the RX electrodes;

a drive circuit coupled to the TX electrodes, the drive circuit configured to produce a TX signal on the TX electrodes, wherein at least two TX electrodes are driven by the drive circuit concurrently;

an analog front end (AFE) coupled to the RX electrodes, the AFE configured to generate a digital value representative of the mutual capacitance, wherein the AFE comprises a quadrature demodulation circuit configured to generate a demodulated signal, and wherein at least two RX electrodes are coupled to the AFE differentially;

a channel engine configured to generate a capacitance result value based on the at least one digital value;

a scan control circuit to configure a first multiplexer coupled between the drive circuit and the plurality of TX electrodes and to configure a second multiplexer coupled between the AFE and the plurality of RX electrodes; and

a memory configured to store the capacitance result value generated by the channel engine.

15. The fingerprint detection system of claim 14, wherein the channel engine is configured to operate using a hardware accelerator circuit.

16. The fingerprint detection system of claim 14, wherein the quadrature demodulator comprises

at least two modulator inputs, each input coupled to a modifier, the modifier driven by a phase-shifted reference signal;

a plurality of low pass filters coupled to an output of the modifiers, and

a plurality of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) coupled to an output of the low pass filters, the ADCs configured to generate a digital value derived from a capacitance on the at least one of the plurality of sensing electrodes.

17. The fingerprint detection system of claim 14, wherein the capacitances of the sensing electrodes are processed by the AFE concurrently, each on a differential channel to produce a differential output for each sensing electrode.