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Cypress's New Auto-Tuning Solution said to Revolutionize Touch-Sensing Design

3rd November 2009

ES Admin

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Cypress Semiconductor today announced an automatic tuning solution for its CapSense capacitive touch-sensing devices. While existing solutions require engineers to perform time-consuming calibrations for up to 15 capacitive-sensing parameters, the new patent-pending SmartSense™ solution sets these automatically during the design process, significantly reducing development time. The solution dynamically optimizes the baseline and detection threshold and adjusts for the optimal capacitance range. The SmartSense capability greatly simplifies the replacement of mechanical buttons and sliders, allowing designers to create a single platform for multiple industrial designs without having to manually optimize performance for each design.

Engineers can simply incorporate the SmartSense firmware using the PSoC Designer™ embedded design tool and instantly develop touch-sensing interfaces that provide reliable operation over a wide range of capacitance values. This eliminates the need to retune a design each time the thickness or material used for the interface overlay changes, reducing time to market and saving development costs for customers. Furthermore, the solution ensures that manufacturing variations in PCBs, overlays and changes in noise environment are automatically calibrated out. For more information on the SmartSense CapSense solution visit www.cypress.com/go/capsense.

The firmware for the SmartSense capability is supported in Cypress’s new CY8C20xx6A CapSense devices with low-power 1.8V operation, which the company announced today in a related release (see “New Cypress CapSense® Device is Industry’s Lowest-Power, Configurable Touch-Sensing Controller”). Existing CY8C20xx6A customers can upgrade current projects to the SmartSense firmware module today in PSoC Designer 5.0 software with Service Pack 6 at www.cypress.com/go/designerpack6.

“The popularity of capacitive-sensing for user interfaces continues to rise rapidly,” said Bill Morelli, Director of the Mobile Technologies Group at technology analyst firm IMS Research. “The combination of Cypress’s easy-to-use solution with the new low-power CapSense offering will appeal to mobile handset makers as well as customers in a broad range of other markets.”

“Cypress has built a leadership position in touch-sensing by continually pushing the envelope of innovation, and our new SmartSense capability makes Cypress CapSense by far the market’s simplest solution for developing touch-sensing interfaces,” said Gokul Krishnan, director of marketing for CapSense User Interfaces at Cypress. “The SmartSense auto-tuning solution allows Cypress to address new segments, catering to new customers who may not be very familiar with capacitive sensing. At the same time, the solution helps existing customers respond to changes in market requirements and/or industrial design much more rapidly.”

The new CY8C20xx6A devices have up to 36 CapSense I/Os and 6 sliders, along with I2C, SPI and USB interfaces. The low-power devices provide best-in-class immunity to conducted and radiated noise and extended battery life in applications such as mobile handsets, Bluetooth headsets, multimedia buttons, LCD TVs and monitors, printers and more. CapSense devices also provide robust waterproofing and proximity sensing with industry-leading range. Leveraging the PSoC® programmable system-on-chip architecture, a single CapSense device can also manage functions such as haptics, intelligent sensing, LED control and more – a capability called CapSense Plus™.