Atmel Revolutionizes Touch User Experience with Industry's Highest Performing Stylus for Tablets and Handsets

The maXStylus family is designed to provide the most precise, high-resolution writing experience with a narrow 1mm tip, excellent accuracy and linearity of +/- 0.25mm, advanced gesturing, palm rejection and pressure sensing capability with 256 pressure levels to enhance writing/drawing experiences. The family also supports dual mechanical buttons for customizable features tailored for the end customer. The Atmel mXTS100 is the first solution sampling in this family and works seamlessly with the maXTouch E series and future maXTouch solutions.

The maXStylus family also leverages Atmel's eco-system and software partners. As a co-engineering partner to Microsoft, the mXTS100 supports Windows 8® and the recently launched Android 4.0™ Ice Cream Sandwich.

Traditional solutions today require two separate sensors to enable both stylus and finger touch functionality. With Atmel maXStylus solutions, OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) can use just one sensor to implement both a stylus and touch simultaneously to simplify system design and reduce overall system cost. The new family also reduces the overall time-to-market for adding touch and stylus features to a design using award-winning maXTouch technology.

Stylus support will be an important touch component as media tablets migrate to include more creation-oriented applications and Windows 8 incorporates a touch friendly architecture, said Rhoda Alexander, Director, Monitor and Tablet Research at IHS. A stylus solution allows the user to move past finger input to more specific touchpoints, dramatically improving drawing, writing, and screen navigation while also providing an alternate input for gloved or mittened fingers. Handwriting capability is particularly important in Asia for character recognition and is a must have in much of the education sector. With stylus demand increasing in the fast growing tablet and smartphone markets, companies offering affordable, well designed stylus solutions are well positioned to capitalize on this rapidly growing segment.

As the leader in the touch market, Atmel continues to offer the right features that are critical for any touch design such as the first-ever multiSense functionality, said Jon Kiachian, Sr. Director of Touch Marketing, Atmel Corporation. Customers are demanding stylus support and we are excited to be one of the first companies to provide the highest performance, cost-optimized stylus solution for this rapidly growing segment.

Availability
The Atmel mXTS100 is sampling to lead customers in November 2011. Production quantities are expected to ship in Q1FY12.