Noise reduction for touch sensor system with active stylus

• US 9,557,868 B2
• Filed: 11/21/2014
• Issued: 01/31/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Agarwal, Manu, Shahparnia, Shahrooz, Pant, Vivek
• Primary Examiner(s): Sasinowski, Andrew
• Assistant Examiner(s): WOO, KUO-KONG
• Application Number:
  US14/550,784
• Publication Number:
  US 20160147319A1
• Time in Patent Office: 802 Days
• Field of Search: 345/173, 345/174, 178/18.03
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04107 Shielding in digitiser, i.e. guard or shielding arrangements, mostly for capacitive touchscreens, e.g. driven shields, driven grounds
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0418 for error correction or compensation, e.g. based on parallax, calibration or alignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/044 by capacitive means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0442 using active external devices, e.g. active pens, for transmitting changes in electrical potential to be received by the digitiser
• 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 touch sensor may overlap a display. A transparent shield layer that is grounded around its edges may be interposed between the display and the touch sensor to help prevent noise from display data lines from reaching the touch sensor. The data lines may extend along a first dimension. The touch sensor may have first elongated electrodes that extend along the first dimension and second elongated electrodes that extend along a second dimension that is perpendicular to the first dimension. The second electrodes may be interposed between the first electrodes and the data lines. Pen present electrodes may be used to gather pen present data associated with a stylus on the touch sensor. Adjacent noise sensors may collect noise data that is removed from the pen present data.

Claims

1. Apparatus that is responsive to input from a stylus, comprising:

a touch sensor having edges and having a plurality of electrodes; and

touch sensor circuitry that processes signals from the plurality of electrodes, wherein the touch sensor circuitry obtains signal data from the plurality of electrodes including pen present data from pen present electrodes where the stylus is located on the touch sensor and noise data from noise electrodes adjacent to the pen present electrodes, wherein the touch sensor circuitry includes a processor that removes the noise data from the pen present data to produce noise-removed pen present data, wherein the noise electrodes include at least four electrodes adjacent to the pen present electrodes, and wherein the processor includes a noise correction module that removes the noise data from the pen present data by computing a mean of the noise data on the noise electrodes.

2. The apparatus defined in claim 1 wherein the touch sensor circuitry is configured to compute position data for the stylus based on the noise-removed pen present data.

3. The apparatus defined in claim 2 wherein the touch sensor circuitry includes front-end circuitry that obtains the signal data from the plurality of electrodes.

4. The apparatus defined in claim 3 wherein the pen present electrodes are formed from a set of at least three electrodes among the plurality of electrodes.

5. The apparatus defined in claim 4 wherein the noise correction module is configured to subtract a value equal to the mean of the noise data multiplied by a noise data scaling factor from the pen present data to produce the noise-removed pen present data.

6. The apparatus defined in claim 5 further comprising:

a display, wherein the touch sensor overlaps the display.

7. The apparatus defined in claim 6 wherein the plurality of electrodes includes first elongated transparent electrodes that extend along a first dimension, the touch sensor further comprising second elongated transparent electrodes that extend along a second dimension that is perpendicular to the first dimension.

8. The apparatus defined in claim 7 wherein the display has a plurality of data lines that extend along the first dimension and wherein the second elongated transparent electrodes are interposed between the first elongated transparent electrodes and the plurality of data lines.

9. The apparatus defined in claim 8 wherein the noise correction module is configured to select a value for the noise data scaling factor based on how far the pen present electrodes are located from one of the edges.

10. A touch sensor display that receives input from a stylus, comprising:

display layers that produce images, wherein the display layers include data lines and have edges;

a conductive transparent shield layer that overlaps the display layers and that is grounded at the edges;

touch sensor electrodes on the display layers that receive noise from the data lines; and

touch sensor circuitry that processes signals from the electrodes, wherein the touch sensor circuitry obtains pen present data from pen present electrodes associated with presence of the stylus and noise data from noise electrodes adjacent to the pen present electrodes and that removes the noise data from the pen present data, wherein the pen present electrodes have first and second opposing sides, wherein there are at least two adjacent noise electrodes on the first side of the pen present electrodes when the pen present electrodes are located away from the edges of the display layers, and wherein there are at least two adjacent noise electrodes on the second side of the pen present electrodes when the pen present electrodes are located away from the edges of the display layers.

11. The touch sensor display defined in claim 10 wherein there are three pen present electrodes.

12. The touch sensor display defined in claim 10 wherein the touch sensor circuitry removes the noise data based at least partly on how far the pen present electrodes are from the edges.

13. The touch sensor display defined in claim 12 wherein the touch sensor electrodes include first elongated transparent electrodes that extend along a first dimension and second elongated transparent electrodes that extend along a second dimension that is perpendicular to the first dimension, wherein the data lines extend along the first dimension, and wherein the second elongated transparent electrodes are interposed between the first elongated transparent electrodes and the data lines.

14. The touch sensor display defined in claim 10 wherein there are two pen present electrodes.

15. The touch sensor display defined in claim 10, wherein there are less than two noise electrodes on the first side of the pen present electrodes when the pen present electrodes are located near the edges of the display layers, and wherein there are at least three noise electrodes on the second side of the pen present electrodes when the pen present electrodes are located near the edges of the display layers.

16. A method of determining where a stylus is located on a touch sensor, comprising:

with front end circuitry in a touch sensor circuit, measuring pen present data on at least one pen present touch sensor electrode associated with a presence of the stylus on the touch sensor and measuring noise data on first and second sets of touch sensor noise electrodes that are adjacent to the at least one pen present touch sensor electrode and that are located on opposing sides of the at least one pen present touch sensor electrode, wherein the first and second sets of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes each include fewer than four touch sensor noise electrodes; and

with the touch sensor circuit, removing noise from the pen present data based on the measured noise data.

17. The method defined in claim 16 wherein removing the noise comprises removing the noise with a noise correction module in the touch sensor circuit based at least partly on how far the at least one pen present touch sensor electrode is from edges of the touch sensor.

18. The method defined in claim 17 wherein removing the noise comprises applying a scaling factor to the measured noise data based on how far the at least one pen present touch sensor electrode is from the edges of the touch sensor.

19. The method defined in claim 16 wherein removing the noise comprises removing the noise in phase with the pen present data.

20. The method defined in claim 16 wherein the at least one pen present touch sensor electrode comprises more than one pen present touch sensor electrode and fewer than three pen present touch sensor electrodes.

21. The method defined in claim 16, wherein the first set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes two touch sensor noise electrodes when the pen present electrodes are located a first distance from an edge of the touch sensor, wherein the first set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes one touch sensor noise electrode when the pen present electrodes are located a second distance from the edge of the touch sensor, wherein the first set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes zero touch sensor noise electrodes when the pen present electrodes are located a third distance from the edge of the touch sensor, wherein the first distance is greater than the second distance, and wherein the second distance is greater than the third distance.

22. The method defined in claim 21, wherein the second set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes two touch sensor noise electrodes when the first set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes two touch sensor noise electrodes, wherein the second set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes three touch sensor noise electrodes when the first set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes one touch sensor noise electrode, and wherein the second set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes four touch sensor noise electrodes when the first set of adjacent touch sensor noise electrodes includes zero touch sensor noise electrodes.