Touch panel controller, integrated circuit, touch panel device, and electronic device

• US 9,658,728 B2
• Filed: 04/09/2014
• Issued: 05/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wacom Co Limited (Wacom)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Kanazawa, Yusuke
• Primary Examiner(s): Marinelli, Patrick F
• Application Number:
  US14/889,765
• Publication Number:
  US 20160132149A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,140 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04164 Connections between sensors and controllers, e.g. routing lines between electrodes and connection pads
• 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

Provided is a driving control unit (93) which performs control to switch high and low of correlation of code sequences output by driving signal generation units (4a to 4d) according to a detection distance which is a distance between a surface of a touch panel (2) and an object to be detected.

Claims

1. A touch panel controller, comprising:

a capacitance driving unit which causes a linear sum signal based on charges, which are accumulated in a plurality of electrostatic capacitances arranged in a corresponding row, to be output from at least one sense line of a touch panel including a plurality of drive lines in which respective columns of a plurality of electrostatic capacitances arranged in a matrix manner are arranged and a plurality of sense lines in which respective rows of the plurality of electrostatic capacitances are arranged, by driving the plurality of drive lines in parallel;

a driving signal generation unit which outputs each of a plurality of driving signals for driving the plurality of drive lines in parallel to the capacitance driving unit by using code sequences, wherein the code sequences include high-correlation code sequences and low-correlation code sequences; and

a correlation control unit which performs control to switch between high-correlation code sequences and low-correlation code sequences according to a detection distance which is a distance between a surface of the touch panel and an object to be detected.

2. The touch panel controller according to claim 1, wherein:

when the detection distance is shorter than a predetermined threshold, the correlation control unit causes the driving signal generation unit to output low-correlation code sequences, which mutually have low correlation, as the code sequences, and

when the detection distance is the threshold or more, the correlation control unit causes the driving signal generation unit to output high-correlation code sequences, which mutually have high correlation compared to the low-correlation code sequences, as the code sequences.

3. The touch panel controller according to claim 1,

wherein the capacitance driving unit outputs a different linear sum signal based on charges, which are accumulated in a plurality of electrostatic capacitances arranged in a corresponding column, from at least one drive line in the touch panel by driving the plurality of sense lines in parallel, and

wherein the driving signal generation unit causes the capacitance driving unit to output the different linear sum signal by driving the plurality of sense lines in parallel.

4. The touch panel controller according to claim 1, further comprising:

a switching control unit which switches an output mode in which the linear sum signal is output from the at least one sense line and a non-output mode in which the linear sum signal is not output from the at least one sense line,

wherein the switching control unit performs control, when having switched to the non-output mode, so as to apply a voltage according to the plurality of driving signals for driving the plurality of drive lines in parallel to an output side of the at least one sense line, and

wherein the switching control unit performs control, when having switched to the output mode, so as not to apply the voltage according to the plurality of driving signals to the output side of the at least one sense line.

5. The touch panel controller according to claim 2, wherein the driving signal generation unit includes:

a linear feedback shift register which outputs M-sequence codes; and

a plurality of shift registers each provided correspondingly to each of the plurality of drive lines,

wherein the driving signal generation unit bit-shifts the M-sequence codes output from the linear feedback shift register by each of the plurality of shift registers to thereby generate a plurality of types of the low-correlation code sequences, and

wherein the driving signal generation unit increases a level of the correlation of the code sequences by providing mutually same signals to each of the plurality of drive lines as the plurality of driving signals.

6. The touch panel controller according to claim 1, further comprising:

an inner product computation unit which estimates a capacitance value of each of a plurality of electrostatic capacitances arranged in a corresponding row of the at least one sense line by inner product computation of the linear sum signal and the code sequences.

7. The touch panel controller according to claim 2, further comprising:

a distance deciding unit which decides whether or not the detection distance is longer than the threshold,

wherein the correlation control unit performs control to switch between high-correlation code sequences and low-correlation code sequences output by the driving signal generation unit according to a decision result of the distance deciding unit.

8. An integrated circuit comprising the touch panel controller according to claim 1.

9. A touch panel device comprising the touch panel controller according to claim 1.

10. An electronic device comprising the touch panel controller according to claim 1.