APPARATUS FOR DRIVING A TOUCH PAD AND A PORTABLE TERMINAL HAVING THE SAME

• US 20080007536A1
• Filed: 06/19/2007
• Published: 01/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: JEON, Jae-Hyoung, PARK, Seok-Hyo, KIM, Hark-Sang
• Granted Patent: US 10,133,339 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3262 Power saving in digitizer or tablet
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03547 Touch pads, in which fingers can move on a surface
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

An apparatus for driving a touchpad of a portable terminal including a second control unit controlling the touchpad in an active mode is provided. The apparatus includes a sensor unit for generating interrupt signals when pressure on the touchpad is sensed, a first control unit for outputting activating signals to activate the second control unit when the interrupt signals are input and a switching unit for transmitting the interrupt signals generated from the sensor unit to the first control unit when the second control unit is in an inactive mode. Accordingly, even though the multimedia processor embedded in the portable terminal is in an inactive mode, the multimedia processor is activated when a user presses the touchpad, thereby making it possible to process signals input by touching the touchpad, particularly, to keep the user interface. Furthermore, the multimedia processor embedded in the portable terminal can reduce the consumption of battery power required to maintain the user interface, as compared with multimedia processors maintaining operating in a conventional polling method.

Claims

1. An apparatus for driving a touchpad of a portable terminal, the apparatus comprising:

a sensor unit for generating an interrupt signal when pressure on a touchpad is sensed;

a second control unit for controlling the touchpad in an active mode;

a first control unit for outputting an activating signal to activate the second control unit when the interrupt signal is generated; and

a switching unit for transmitting the interrupt signal generated from the sensor unit to the first control unit when the second control unit is in an inactive mode.

2. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the second control unit comprises a multimedia processor for processing multimedia including at least one of voice and pictures.

3. The apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the first control unit generates a control signal when the multimedia processor enters an inactive mode, so that the switching unit transmits the interrupt signal output from the sensor unit to the first control unit.

4. The apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the first control unit controls the switching unit and is converted to a sleep mode.

5. The apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein when the first control unit receives the interrupt signal from the switching unit, the first control unit is converted to an active mode, outputs an activating signal to activate the multimedia processor, and is converted to the sleep mode again.

6. The apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein, when the activating signal is output to the multimedia processor so that the multimedia processor is activated, the switching unit is controlled by the first control unit so that it does not transmit the interrupt signal to the first control unit.

7. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein, when the activating signal is output to the multimedia processor so that the multimedia processor is activated, the switching unit is controlled by the first control unit so that it does not transmit the interrupt signal to the first control unit.

8. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the touchpad comprises the sensor unit and the sensor unit comprises a dome sheet including a dome switch.

9. The apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the first control unit outputs the activating signal, and generates a control signal causing the switching unit to transmit the interrupt signal to the multimedia processor.

10. The apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein the first control unit outputs the activating signal and generates the control signal at substantially the same time.

11. The apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein the first control unit determines if the multimedia processor is in an active mode at a certain time period, and causes the switching unit to transmit the interrupt signal to the first control unit when the multimedia processor is not in the active mode.

12. The apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein when the multimedia processor is converted from an active mode to an inactive mode, the multimedia processor outputs a signal notifying conversion to the inactive mode to the first control unit.

13. The apparatus as claimed in claim 12, wherein the first control unit controls the switching unit to transmit the interrupt signal to the first control unit when the signal notifying conversion to the inactive mode is output from the multimedia processor.

14. An apparatus for driving a touchpad of a portable terminal, the apparatus comprising:

a sensor unit for generating an interrupt signal when pressure on a touchpad is sensed;

a second control unit for controlling the touchpad in an active mode; and

a first control unit for outputting an activating signal to activate the second control unit when the interrupt signal is input.

15. The apparatus as claimed in claim 14, wherein the second control unit comprises a multimedia processor for processing multimedia including at least one of voice and pictures.

16. The apparatus as claimed in claim 15, wherein when the interrupt signal is transmitted to the first control unit in a sleep mode, the first control unit is converted to an active mode, outputs an activating signal to activate the multimedia processor, and is converted to the sleep mode again.

17. The apparatus as claimed in claim 16, wherein the first control unit determines if the multimedia processor is in an active mode when the first control unit receives the interrupt signal, and does not output the activating signal when the multimedia processor is in an active mode.

18. The apparatus as claimed in claim 14, wherein the touchpad comprises the sensor unit and the sensor unit comprises a dome sheet including a dome switch.

19. An apparatus for driving a touchpad of a portable terminal, the apparatus comprising:

a touchpad, the touchpad comprising;

a sensor unit for generating an interrupt signal when pressure on the touchpad is sensed; and

a switching unit for transmitting the interrupt signal generated from the sensor unit;

a second control unit for controlling the touchpad in an active mode; and

a first control unit for outputting an activating signal to activate the second control unit when the interrupt signal is transmitted from the switching unit.

20. The apparatus as claimed in claim 19, wherein the first control unit generates a control signal when the second control unit enters an inactive mode, so that the switching unit transmits the interrupt signal output from the sensor unit to the first control unit.