Scan sequence generator

• US 8,922,519 B2
• Filed: 12/02/2013
• Issued: 12/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Krah, Christoph Horst, Vu, Minh-Dieu Thi
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, JENNIFER T
• Application Number:
  US14/094,608
• Publication Number:
  US 20140092063A1
• Time in Patent Office: 393 Days
• Field of Search: 345173-178, 178 1801- 1806
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04104 Multi-touch detection in digitiser, i.e. details about the simultaneous detection of a plurality of touching locations, e.g. multiple fingers or pen and finger
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04106 Multi-sensing digitiser, i.e. digitiser using at least two different sensing technologies simultaneously or alternatively, e.g. for detecting pen and finger, for saving power or for improving position detection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04108 Touchless 2D- digitiser, i.e. digitiser detecting the X/Y position of the input means, finger or stylus, also when it does not touch, but is proximate to the digitiser's interaction surface without distance measurement in the Z direction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/03545 Pens or stylus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04166 Details of scanning methods, e.g. sampling time, grouping of sub areas or time sharing with display driving Synchronisation with the driving of the display or the backlighting unit to avoid interferences generated internally G06F3/04184
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]

Abstract

A sensor panel device that can generate and use a stimulus signal having multiple different waveforms for detecting events on or near the sensor panel is disclosed. Among other things, such a stimulus signal can be used to reject environmental noise present in the device. In some embodiments, the stimulus signal has multiple waveforms having different frequencies. Logic circuitry can generate representative values from output of the different waveforms applied to one or more sensing nodes in the sensor panel device. From the representative values, a final value can be generated that represents whether an event occurred at or near the one or more sensing nodes.

Claims

1. A sensor panel device comprising:

an event sensitive panel having at least one sense node that provides an output signal indicative of an event or no-event condition on the panel;

output circuitry operatively connected to the at least one sense node that generates stimulus signals having multiple different frequencies, the sensing node providing multiple outputs in response to the multiple different frequencies for at least one event to detect a position of touching of the sensor panel or nearly touching the sensor panel; and

input circuitry operatively connected to the at least one sense node to receive the multiple outputs, the input circuitry configured to measure the results of any stimulus signals applied to the at least one sense node to determine a position of touch or near touch based on all or a plurality of the received multiple outputs;

wherein the input circuitry comprise a virtual ground charge amplifier.

2. The sensor panel of claim 1 wherein the input circuitry comprises a signal mixer coupled to receive an output of the virtual ground charge amplifier.

3. The sensor panel of claim 2, wherein the signal mixer is configured to reject frequencies outside of a passband.

4. The sensor panel of claim 3, wherein the multiple different frequencies are selected such that the individual passbands of the different frequencies do not overlap one another.

5. The sensor panel of claim 4, wherein the input circuitry further comprises an offset compensation circuit.

6. The sensor panel of claim 1, wherein the multiple different frequencies are selected such that the individual passbands of the different frequencies do not overlap one another.

7. The sensor panel of claim 1, wherein the input circuitry further comprises an offset compensation circuit.

8. The sensor panel device of claim 1, wherein the stimulus signals have a low, medium and high frequency.

9. The sensor panel device of claim 1, wherein the stimulus signals comprise multiple pulse trains and at least some of the pulse trains have different frequencies.

10. The sensor panel device of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of drive electrodes;

a plurality of sense electrodes,

the at least one sense node formed by the crossing of one of the drive electrodes with one of the sense electrodes, the sense node formed by capacitive coupling of the one of the drive electrodes and the one of the sense electrodes.

11. The sensor panel device of claim 1, wherein the input circuitry comprises at least one analog channel.

12. The sensor panel device of claim 1, further comprising a processor operatively connected to the input circuitry and configured to receive and process data provided by the input circuitry.

13. A mobile telephone incorporating the sensor panel device of claim 1.

14. A digital audio player incorporating the sensor panel device of claim 1.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the first stimulation signal comprises a pulse train having a low frequency, a pulse train having a medium frequency and a pulse train having a high frequency.

16. An apparatus for detecting events on a sensor panel device having a sensor panel surface, the sensor panel device having a plurality of drive electrodes and a plurality of sense electrodes and capacitive sensing nodes at the intersection of the drive and sense electrodes, each capacitive sensing node formed by the intersection of a single drive line and a single sense line, the apparatus comprising:

a plurality of sensors configured to detect one or more events each sensor comprising a capacitive sensing node;

output circuitry operatively connected to the channel scan logic and the plurality of sensors, the output circuitry configured to generate stimulus signals having predetermined waveforms, at least some of the predetermined waveforms having different frequencies, each sensor providing a plurality of different outputs corresponding to the different frequencies to detect the events; and

one or more analog channels operatively connected to the plurality of sensors, the one or more analog channels having at least on virtual ground charge amplifier, and the one or more analog channels configured to generate distinct values representative of events occurring at distinct locations each distinct value based on the plurality of different outputs for each sensor.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the channel scan logic circuitry, the output circuitry and the one or more analog channels form part of a touch subsystem for processing events.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the output circuitry comprises driver logic capable of driving the plurality of touch sensors with stimulus signals.

19. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the plurality of sensors form one or more sensor rows located in distinct and non-overlapping areas.

20. The apparatus of claim 16, the plurality of sensors are arranged in rows and columns in the sensor panel, each column operatively connected to a different analog channel.

21. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising a computing system that incorporates the apparatus, the computing system comprising:

an event subsystem operatively connected to the plurality of sensors;

an event panel processor operatively connected to the event subsystem; and

a host processor operatively connected to the event panel processor.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, further comprising a cellular telephone that incorporates the computing system.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, further comprising a digital audio player that incorporates the computing system.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein the step of determining the final result comprises applying a majority rules algorithm to the results.

24. A method of detecting events with a touch sensor panel device comprising:

applying a first stimulation signal having multiple different frequencies to a first touch sensing node of the touch sensor panel device to detect a position of an object touching the touch sensor panel device at or near the first touch sensing node;

while applying the first stimulation signal, using a virtual ground charge amplifier for sensing an output of the first touch sensing node for each frequency of the stimulation signal that was applied to the first touch sensing node to thereby provide multiple outputs;

offset compensating the multiple outputs,

determining a final result based on all or a plurality of the offset compensated multiple outputs of the first touch sensing node; and

utilizing the final result to determine the position of touch, near touch or hover location on the touch sensor panel device.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

applying a second stimulation signal having multiple different frequencies to a second touch sensing node of the touch sensor panel device;

sensing an output for each frequency of the second stimulation signal that was applied to the touch sensing node; and

determining a final result based on one or more of the outputs of the second stimulation signal.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the second stimulation signal comprises a pulse train having low frequency, a pulse train having a medium frequency and a pulse train having a high frequency.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein the step of determining the final result comprises averaging at least two of the results.

29. The method of claim 24, wherein the step of determining the final result comprises taking a median value of the results.

30. The method of claim 24, wherein the first stimulation frequency comprises a first pulse train that is applied to the sensing node at a time t1, a second pulse train that is applied to the sensing node at a time t2 and a third pulse train that is applied to the sending node at a time t3, wherein t1 is before t2, t2 is before t3, and the time between t1 and t2 is different than the time between t2 and t3.

31. The method of claim 24, wherein determining the final result further comprises determining whether one or more of the outputs is corrupted and eliminating any corrupted output from being used when determining the final result.