This patent application claims priority from Taiwan Patent Application No. 098125777, filed in the Taiwan Patent Office on Jul. 31, 2009, entitled “Touch Control Apparatus, Associated Sensing Control Apparatus and Method Thereof”, and incorporates the Taiwan patent application in its entirety by reference.
The present disclosure relates to touch sensing, and more particularly, to a touch control apparatus and associated sensing control apparatus and method capable of controlling a sequence for scanning pins.
The capacitive touch panel 110 comprises a plurality of sensing lines comprising nx+my conductive wires, mx×nx capacitors 111 for sensing an X axis direction of the touch panel 110, and my×ny capacitors 112 for sensing a Y axis direction of the touch panel 110.
The capacitors 111 are arranged in mx columns in the X axis direction and nx rows in the Y axis direction, and each row of the capacitors 111 is serially connected to mx capacitors 111 via a conductive wire Xn. Ten conductive wires X0 to X9 are illustrated in
The sensing controller 130 is provided on the PCB 120 comprises a plurality of pins Si, which are respectively coupled to the conductive wires Xn and Ym. In
For example, when a user touches a certain position of the capacitive touch panel 110, an equivalent capacitance value corresponding to the touch is generated by capacitors 111 and 112 at the position or a neighboring position, and is transmitted to the sensing controller 130 via corresponding conductive wires Xn and Ym. The sensing controller 130 respectively receives in sequence the capacitance values from the conductive wires Y0 to Y11 and X0 to X9 via the time division approach. Upon detecting that the capacitance values from the conductive wires Xn and Ym comprised the equivalent capacitance value corresponding to the touch, the sensing controller 130 can calculate a coordinate of the touched position by utilized an X coordinate of the capacitor 111 and a Y coordinate of the capacitor 112 at the position or at the neighboring position.
Since the sensing controller 130 receives in sequence signals transmitted from the pins S0 to S21 via the time division approach, the conductive wires Y0 to Y11 and X0 to X9 need to be connected according to a predetermined sequence, and are correspondingly coupled to the pins S0 to S21 on a one-on-one basis. Therefore, when a circuit layout of the capacitive touch panel 110 is changed, a conductive wire layout on the PCB 120 and at least some of the conductive wires Y0 to Y11 and X0 to X9 outside a sensing area A1 need to be correspondingly changed, so that the conductive wires Y0 to Y11 and X0 to X9 can maintain the corresponding one-on-one relationship with the pins S0 to S21.
The present disclosure provides a sensing control apparatus capable of simplifying a conductive wire layout between a touch panel and the sensing control apparatus, and a touch control apparatus using the sensing control apparatus.
The present disclosure further provides a method for controlling a touch panel capable of simplifying a conductive wire layout between the touch panel and a sensing control apparatus.
The present disclosure further provide a sensing control apparatus capable of controlling a sequence for scanning pins, and a touch control apparatus using the sensing control apparatus.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a touch control apparatus comprises a touch panel and a sensing control apparatus. The touch panel comprises a plurality of sensing lines, and the sensing control apparatus comprises a plurality of pins that are respectively coupled to the plurality of sensing lines. The sensing control apparatus adaptively controls a sequence for scanning the pins according to connection relationships between the pins and the sensing lines.
According to the present disclosure, the sensing control apparatus comprises an interface circuit and a controller. The interface circuit comprises the plurality of pins, and the controller adaptively controls a sequence for scanning the pins by the interface circuit. In an embodiment, the sensing control apparatus further comprises a coordinate generating apparatus, which respectively receives a plurality of sensing results generated by the sensing lines via the pins of the interface circuit and generates a coordinate data according to the plurality of sensing results.
According to the present disclosure, the interface circuit comprises a plurality of switch components, which are respectively coupled between the pins and the coordinate generating apparatus, and are for selectively and respectively switching between a first status and a second status according to control of the controller. In an embodiment, in a first predetermined mode, the controller controls the interface circuit to simultaneously scan at least some of the pins. In another embodiment, in a second predetermined mode, the controller controls the interface circuit to only scan in sequence at least some of the pins.
According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, a method for controlling a touch panel is applied to a sensing control apparatus comprising a plurality of pins, which are respectively coupled to a plurality of sensing lines of the touch panel. The method comprises determining a sequence for scanning the pins according to connection relationships between the pins and the sensing lines; scanning the pins according to the sequence to respectively receive a plurality of sensing results from the sensing lines; and generating a coordinate data according to the sensing results.
In an embodiment, in a normal mode, the sequence is a first sequence; and in a first predetermined mode, the sequence is a second sequence for controlling to scan at least some of the pins. In another embodiment, in a second predetermined mode, the sequence is a third sequence for simultaneously controlling to scan at least one of the pins.
According to a touch panel apparatus, an associated sensing control apparatus, and a method for controlling a touch panel provided by the present disclosure, the sensing control apparatus is capable of controlling a sequence for scanning pins according to connection relationships between the pins and the sensing lines. Therefore, the pins need not be coupled to the sensing lines in a predetermined sequence, but can be randomly coupled to the sensing lines, so as to simplify a conductive wire layout between the touch panel and the sensing control apparatus.
The sensing control apparatus 220 comprises the pins S0 to S21. In order to easily sense a coordinate data of a touched position on the touch panel 210, the sensing control apparatus 220 controls a sequence for scanning the pins S0 to S21 according to connection relationships between the pins S0 to S21 and the conductive wires Y0 to Y11 and X0 to X9. In this embodiment, the sequence for scanning the pins S0 to S21 is defined as {S0, S21, 51, S20, S2, S19, S3, S18, S4, S17, S5, S16, S6, S7, S8, S9, S10, S11, S12, S13, S14 and S15}, and the sensing control apparatus 220 scans the conductive wires Y0 to Y11 and X0 to X9 according to the sequence. Accordingly, the sensing control apparatus 220 controls a sequence for receiving the sensing result signals via the pins S0 to S21, and generates the coordinate data of the touched position on the touch panel 210 according to the sensing result signals. In this embodiment, the sensing control apparatus 220 programmably controls the sequence for scanning the pins S0 to S21 according to the connection relationships between the pins S0 to S21 and the conductive lines Y0 to Y11 and X0 to X9. Therefore, the pins S0 to S21 of the sensing control apparatus 220 need not be coupled in a predetermined sequence to the sensing lines. When the sensing control apparatus 220 is applied to a different touch panel 210, a circuit between the touch panel 210 and the sensing control apparatus 220 may be formed by a simplest approach. The sensing control apparatus 220 correspondingly controls the sequence for scanning the pins S0 to S21 according to the connection relationships between the pins S0 to S21 and the sensing lines, so as to significantly reduce complications of the circuit layout between the pins of the sensing control apparatus 220 and the sensing lines of the touch panel 210.
More specifically, the sensing control apparatus 220 comprises an interface circuit 250, a coordinate generating apparatus 260, and a controller 270. The interface circuit 250 comprises pins S0 to S21. The coordinate generating apparatus 260 receives the sensing result signals via the pins S0 to S21 of the interface circuit 250, and generates a coordinate data according to the sensing result signals. The controller 270 transmits a control signal Sp1 to the interface circuit 250. The interface circuit 250 selectively connects at least one of the pins S0 to S21 to the coordinate generating apparatus 260 with the sequence according to the control signal Sp1, so that the coordinate generating apparatus 260 receives the sensing result signals according to the sequence. More specifically, with the interface circuit 250, the controller 270 implements the control signal Sp1 to control the sequence for scanning the pins S0 to S21 according to the connection relationships between the pins S0 to S21 and conductive wires Y0 to Y11 and X0 to X9, so that the pins S0 to S21 are coupled in sequence to the coordinate generating apparatus 260.
In this embodiment, since a capacitor serves as a sensor, a sensing result signal represents a capacitance value. The coordinate generating apparatus 260 comprises a capacitive digital converter 261 and a coordinate calculator 262. The capacitive digital converter 261 generates a digital capacitance value corresponding to a capacitance value of each of the sensing result signals. The coordinate calculator 262 receives the digital capacitance values, and generates a coordinate data according to the digital capacitance values.
In an embodiment, the interface circuit 250 is a multiplexer.
In an embodiment, the touch control apparatus 200b is operative in various modes, and the controller 270 controls the interface circuit 250b via different approaches under the various modes. Control mechanisms of the controller 270 in different modes shall be described below.
In this embodiment, the touch control apparatus 200b can be operative in an operating mode and a standby mode. In the operating mode, a coordinate data needs to be accurately sensed. Therefore, the controller 270 of the sensing control apparatus 220 scans each of the pins S0 to S21 of the interface circuit 250 according to a sequence {S0, S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S21, S20, S19, S18, S17, S16, S6, S7, S8, S9, S10, S11, S12, 513, 514 and S15}.
In the standby mode or other predetermined mode, detection is focused mainly on an event of a touch rather than a precise coordinate data of the touch, i.e., the coordinate data may only comprise information of an X axis coordinate, or information that a certain position of the touch panel 210 is touched. For example, in the standby mode, only pins connected to the conductive wires X0 to X9 are scanned, and the touch control apparatus 200b only enters the operating mode when a touch is sensed on the touch control apparatus 200b. In an embodiment, in order to avoid misjudgments, a sensing area is narrowed down, e.g., only some of the conductive wires X0 to X9 and some of the conductive wires Y0 to Y11 are scanned. For example, the sensing area is narrowed down to an area comprising solid rhombuses in
In Step S02, a sequence for scanning the pins are determined according to connection relationships between the pins and the sensing lines. In Step S04, the pins are scanned according to the sequence to respectively receive a plurality of sensing result signals from the sensing lines. In Step S06, a coordinate data is generated according to the sensing results.
In an embodiment, in a normal mode (e.g., the foregoing operating mode), the scanning sequence is a first sequence; and in a first predetermined mode (e.g., the foregoing standby mode), the scanning sequence is a second sequence for controlling to scan only at least some of the pins. In another embodiment, in a normal mode, the scanning sequence is a first sequence; and in a second predetermined mode (e.g., the foregoing standby mode), the scanning sequence is a third sequence for controlling to simultaneously scan at least some of the pins.
In conclusion, according to a touch control apparatus, an associated sensing control apparatus, and a method for controlling a touch panel provided by the present disclosure, since the sensing control apparatus is capable of controlling a sequence for scanning pins according to connection relationships between the pins and the sensing lines, circuits between the touch panel and the sensing control apparatus may be formed by a simplest approach, so as to significantly reduce complications involved in a circuit layout between the sensing control apparatus and the touch panel. In addition, the sensing control apparatus and an associated method are capable of only scanning a partial area of the touch panel or scanning the touch panel at a longer time interval to reduce power consumption.
While the disclosure has been described in terms of what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the present disclosure needs not to be limited to the above embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims which are to be accorded with the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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098125777 | Jul 2009 | TW | national |