Capacitive sensor with differential shield
First Claim
1. A capacitive sensor for sensing an environment of the capacitive sensor, wherein the capacitive sensor comprises:
- a single-ended portion;
a segmented sensing differential shield portion having multiple segments; and
a pair of traces coupled to two terminals of a differential sampling circuitry respectively for differential sampling;
wherein the single-ended portion is connected to a first one of the traces, a first subset of the segments of the segmented sensing differential shield portion is connected to the first one of the traces, and a second subset of the segments is connected to a second one of the traces.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present disclosure describes a differential shield capacitive sensor design. The sensor design uses a differential measurement to measure capacitance and a pair of traces are used to differentially reject the response of the sensor traces and balance any parasitic capacitances. In some embodiments, the sensor design includes a differential sensor design on a bottom side of a flex circuit to differentially balance the environment and reject noise coupling to the sensor. The top side of the flex circuit can include a single ended design for proper environment sensing. The spatial arrangement and size of the sensors may vary depending on the application.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A capacitive sensor for sensing an environment of the capacitive sensor, wherein the capacitive sensor comprises:
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a single-ended portion; a segmented sensing differential shield portion having multiple segments; and a pair of traces coupled to two terminals of a differential sampling circuitry respectively for differential sampling; wherein the single-ended portion is connected to a first one of the traces, a first subset of the segments of the segmented sensing differential shield portion is connected to the first one of the traces, and a second subset of the segments is connected to a second one of the traces. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A system for sensing an environment of a capacitive sensor using differential sampling, the system comprising:
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the capacitive sensor comprising; a single-ended portion; a segmented sensing differential shield portion having multiple segments; and a pair of traces; wherein the single-ended portion is connected to a first one of the traces, a first subset of the segments of the segmented sensing differential shield portion is connected to the first one of the traces, and a second subset of the segments is connected to a second one of the traces, and a circuitry having two terminals connected to the pair of traces for differentially charging the capacitive sensor and substantially simultaneous sampling the capacitive sensor to obtain two differential measurement signals representative of the environment. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A method for sensing an environment of a capacitive sensor using differential sampling, the method comprising:
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differentially charging the capacitive sensor by connecting a first terminal and a second terminal to a first one of a differential signal and a second one of the differential signal respectively, wherein the first terminal and the second terminal are connected to a first trace and a second trace respectively, the first trace is connected to a single ended portion of the capacitive sensor and a first subset of segments of a segmented sensing differential shield portion of the capacitive sensor, and the second trace is connected to a second subset of segments of the segmented sensing differential shield portion of the capacitive sensor; and substantially simultaneously sampling two differential measurement signals present at the first terminal and the second terminal. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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Specification