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CAPACITIVE PROXIMITY SENSORS EMBODY
AN OLD CONCEPT THAT TODAY’S IC TECH-
NOLOGIES PROMISE TO DELIVER. VENDORS
VIE TO WIN OVER NEW MARKETS IN THE
AUTOMOTIVE, CONSUMER, AND INDUSTRIAL
MARKETS USING METHODS THAT COMBINE
TRADITIONAL ANALOG WITH THE BEST OF
CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL TECHNIQUES.
W
and how easy are they to design with?
struggle to embed more func-
The product of Russian-government-
tions into ever-shrinking size sponsored research into proximity sen-
and power-consumption foot- sors, the Theremin sensor, which
prints, product designers wres- Leonard Theremin invented in 1919,
represents possibly the first commercial
tle with a bigger but similarly use of capacitive sensing. The device
unchanging picture. Their senses the proximity of a musician’s hands
perspective, which resonates to a pair of antennas that modulate the
from the board room to the frequency and amplitude of two hetero-
dyning oscillators that form the heart of
consumer-product media, is the world’s first electronic music synthe-
that cutting-edge packaging sizer. Continuing this theme, in 1972,
and smart user interfaces ultimately sell products—sometimes designer David Cockerell at Electronic
Music Studios penned the KS keyboard
despite the underlying hardware. In the automotive industry, sim-
as a sequencer for the company’s range of
ilar presentation concerns dominate, even though the technolo- voltage-controlled synthesizers (Refer-
gies are complex, and the value of the end product is high. For ence 1). This intriguing device boasts
instance, Osram recently won the 2006 PACE (Premier a 30-note, touch-sensitive keyboard
whose inputs rely on the TTL character-
Automotive Suppliers’ Contribution to Excellence, www.trcpg. istics of two 74150 16-to-one-line multi-
com/pace.htm) innovation award for its color-on-demand LEDs, plexers. These devices scan the keyboard,
which offer car makers the opportunity to specify custom hues taking their clock inputs from a 4-bit
that differentiate their products from those of their competitors. binary ripple counter. A network biases
the inputs to the multiplexers to hold
Such simple stratagems sell. Meanwhile, back on the shop floor, them close to their switching threshold,
it’s always been a high priority for automation vendors to offer which a finger press then exceeds. At this
user interfaces that are as simple yet as powerful as possible— time, the appropriate data-selector output
goes low to latch the 4-bit code and the
not to mention utterly reliable.
multiplexer’s identity to create a 5-bit
These and countless other applications liable in sensitivity and stability, today’s address that represents key position.
depend upon two primary elements: touch switches are often cheaper and
switches and displays. Although displays more reliable than their electromechan- SHUNT FIELD SENSES OBJECTS
and enabling technologies, such as ical counterparts. Gone too are the days Surprisingly perhaps, today’s capaci-
OLEDs (organic LEDs) attract massive when choosing a touch switch or panel tive-sensor ICs from Analog Devices,
attention, the lowly switch partner often required custom manufacture, as a grow- Cypress Semiconductor, Freescale Semi-
receives scant recognition. But this tech- ing variety of capacitive-sensing ICs conductor, and Quantum Research
nology moves on too, with a new gener- makes even one-off designs affordable. Group similarly demonstrate different
ation of capacitive touch sensors provid- Crucially, such developments offer prod- approaches to sensing. These vendors also
ing compelling reasons for designers to uct designers the scope to differentiate offer evaluation kits that make it easy to
reconsider their switch-panel choices. their equipment and offer electronics compare the ease of design and relative
Traditionally difficult to design and unre- engineers the benefit of owning their complexity and robustness of their tech-
ital-conversion channels into a 32-pad, the CDC’s positive or negative input, and
AT A G L A N C E 55-mm leadless CSP (chip-scale pack- connect to the bias rail that drives an
Capacitive touch sensors chal- age). A key feature of this device is its self- external shield conductor. This facility
lenge switches and resistive panels. calibration capability, which is essential provides the flexibility that’s necessary to
for its mobile-electronics target market. support different sensor types. For in-
Available ICs demonstrate diverse The sensor works by generating a 240- stance, one button might connect to a
sensing methods. kHz square-wave signal that drives one of single CDC input, or two buttons might
each button’s electrodes to create an elec- connect differentially across both inputs.
A 3-D-sense field widens applica- tric field that a partner electrode assess- Either of these options requires a single
tion opportunities. es. A switch matrix multiplexes the stage of capacitance-to-digital conversion
receiver electrodes’ signals to a 16-bit to resolve a single button press; pressing
Charge transfer minimizes sense- sigma-delta ADC that performs the both buttons in the differential arrange-
plate count. capacitance-to-digital transformation. ment results in the recognition of neither.
The presence of a finger or another con- A slider requires the differential connec-
Evaluation kits speed robustness ductor shunts the background capaci- tion and two conversion stages, in which
and ease-of-use assessment. tance of the appropriate button, causing the first detects sensor activation—that
the ADC’s output code to change; when is, the proximity of an object—and the
nologies (see sidebar “What’s in the box?” this change exceeds a programmable second resolves its relative position. The
at the Web version of this article at www. threshold value, the sensor registers a key chip’s sequencer supports as many as 12
edn.com/060622cs). Here, “robustness” press (Figure 1). stages of conversion per measurement
refers to the ability to reliably determine Each of the AD7142’s channels has its sequence, and you can optimize perform-
key-press information across a range of own result register that the host reads ance by balancing the number of con-
user profiles and environments. Any using an SPI or I2C interface. The chip versions and the decimation rate that the
touch sensor has a background capaci- can generate interrupts to signal exceed- acquisition block applies. ADI recom-
tance, a signal level, or both that is a ing a sensor’s threshold level, completing mends setting the time for a full conver-
product of its environment and a higher a conversion sequence, and detecting an sion sequence to 35 to 40 msec.
level above which threshold the sensor event on the device’s general-purpose I/O The proximity-detection function is
records a key-press event. Accordingly, pin. At the measurement level, each important for holding off the chip’s inter-
mobile devices present significant chal- input channel has its own 2-bit field with- nal recalibration routine, which runs after
lenges. One minute, the mobile device in a configuration register that determines every conversion sequence to assess
may be in free space, and, the next how it connects to the CDC (capaci- changes in background capacitance. Reg-
minute, its user places it beside a PC, cell tance-to-digital-converter) block. The isters allow designers to adjust the cali-
phone, or other electronic equipment options are: no connection, connect to bration hold-off time for the chip’s full-
that emits unpredictable frequency com-
ponents at various field strengths (see
sidebar “Don’t try this at home!” also at
the Web version of this article at www.
edn.com/060622cs). Electrostatic dis-
charges are other potential sources of mis-
triggering, and water and other contam-
inants can cause similar problems. To
overcome these and other issues, such as
drift with temperature and time, touch-
sensor ICs often embed logic and analog
subsystems that continually calibrate the
system. By characterizing individual
channels, such techniques can also
accommodate keypads that have widely
different user fingerprints and key profiles,
improving both detection and the prod- RECEIVER TRANSMITTER
uct designer’s options.
16-BIT 240-kHz
The issues are clear to see using the DATA
SIGMA-DELTA EXCITATION
new AD7142 from Analog Devices as an SIGNAL
ADC
example and apply in varying measure to
any of the other chips that are available
today. With a base price of $1.65 (1000), Figure 1 Shunt capacitance disturbs the sense field that the AD7142 creates.
the AD7142 packs 14 capacitance-to-dig-
which, according to the example appeared more requires an external 10- an ABS plastic panel. The
online store, was out of responsive than the but- MHz resonator to clock aggregate sensing dis-
stock, quoting delivery of tons-and-slider version in its logic and typically con- tance through FR4 and
four to six weeks. Happily, this respect, when it sumes 2.5 mA from a 5V ABS is about 3 mm. A 10-
the zip-download files proved possible to lose supply. The demo kit wire unshielded cable
contain precompiled hex the LCD’s messaging even includes a 9V battery, connects the board to an
files in the respective out- with a finger right in the which proves that no interface box that con-
put subdirectories, which center of the sensing power-supply ground con- tains an SPI-to-USB con-
trying to compile the C area; interestingly, this nection is necessary for verter built from a
sources using the response seemed to the charge-transfer tech- Microchip PIC16F873A
“rebuild-all” command improve with time. No nique to function reliably. microcontroller and an
clears. Beguilingly, PSoC sensor would detect a fin- The QT160 features adja- FT232BM UART-to-USB-
Designer promises all of ger on the opposite side cent-key suppression, interface chip from FTDI.
the features of a full- of the pc board, and all with capacitors setting (Quantum usefully
blown IDE (integrated required a positive touch the sensitivity for individ- includes another cable-
development environ- rather than sensing prox- ual channels, and gener- and-connector assembly
ment) that programmers imity—characteristics that ates six active-high logic- for users who wish to
will find appealing, plus could prove beneficial in level outputs. It also sup- construct their own inter-
drag-and-drop block-con- some applications. Al- ports a toggle-switch faces, together with a
figuration controls that though executives refuse mode and adds maximum couple of spare QT401s.)
justify fuller investigation to address this point, recalibration-time-out The product’s CD contains
than is possible here industry rumor has it that options that cater to a small PC-resident rou-
(Figure B). PSoC technology powers unusually long key press- tine that continuously
Downloading the the iconic iPod’s wheel es. The adjacent-key-sup- polls the board to return
respective button, slider, interface. pression capability is an finger position. At more
and buttons-and-slider Dispensing with the especially prominent fea- than 10 mm in the track
files onto the board using need for configuration ture of this demonstrator, center and little less in
the MiniProg and running software, Quantum’s allowing a maximum of any other plane, the sys-
the code confirm that the QT160 detects as many as three concurrent detec- tem’s proximity-detection
hardware is operational. six key presses through tions. ability is impressive. With
Although the LCD reports glass panels as thick as The company’s E401 a positive finger press
robust button behavior 100 mm—which explains demo slider assembly and the default setup val-
given a normal finger test, the sturdy construction of similarly requires no user ues, the response has
the slider examples its $75 E160 evaluation programming. Costing worst-case jitter of just
require precise finger board (Figure C). Target- $95, the kit comprises a one value in its 128-point
positioning to return ing detection in perma- QT401 device and a lin- output range.
accurate positional data. nently powered indoor ear-format, 18-electrode
At first, the slider-only environments, the chip pc board that adheres to