Cypress’s TrueTouch® Gen4 Touchscreen Controllers with Glove Tracking Named Editor’s Choice Product by Embedded Computing Design Magazine

Gen4 Accurately Tracks Multiple Fingers Even in Very Thick Gloves;
Also Offers Passive Stylus Support for Handwriting and Proximity-Based Face Detection


SAN JOSE, Calif. – Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: CY) today announced that the editors of Embedded Computing Design magazine have named Cypress’s TrueTouch® Gen4 touchscreen controller family an Editor’s Choice Product. The family delivers multiple new differentiating features, including the world’s best tracking of gloved fingers on capacitive touchscreens. Gen4 enables accurate navigation of touchscreens even with thick gloves on, greatly improving convenience for users of smartphones and other portable electronics.

The Gen4 family also offers new passive stylus support, to capture handwriting and signatures accurately, and proximity detection, which senses an object approaching the touchscreen and powers down the display before contact to avoid accidental touches. The capacitive-sensing based proximity detection feature eliminates the need for infrared (IR) sensors and provides significant cost savings. These advanced features supplement Gen4’s best-in-class water rejection and seamless operation in noisy environments. Video demonstrations of the glove tracking, passive stylus, and proximity sensing capabilities are available at www.cypress.com/touch.

"We chose the Gen4 touchscreen controller as an Editor’s Choice Product for its ability to simplify interaction with portable electronic systems and smartphones in a variety of conditions via glove tracking and other features,” said Warren Webb, Editorial Director at Embedded Computing Design.

“This recognition by the editors of Embedded Computing Design echoes the validation of these new touchscreen features that we are receiving from the world’s leading smartphone manufacturers,” said John Carey, Senior Director of TrueTouch Marketing at Cypress. “Gloved finger tracking, passive stylus support and proximity face detection deliver a better user experience and enable our customers to directly address end-user concerns.”

The Gen4 TMA467 controller tracks up to 10 fingers in thin gloves and two fingers with thicker gloves, such as those used by skiers. It delivers best-in-class accuracy and linearity for gloves of different materials and thicknesses. It automatically switches between glove and finger tracking without any intervention.

The Gen4 TMA468 controller supports passive styli with tips as small as 2 mm, enabling touchscreens to capture characters as small as 7 mm. This capability is important for writing in languages that require enhanced character recognition for reliable text input, such as Chinese and Japanese. The controller delivers a high degree of accuracy and linearity, along with the fast refresh rates required for handwriting and signature capture.

The Gen4 TMA466 controller’s proximity sensing detects objects such as a user’s face up to 25 mm away from the screen and disables detection when a user is on a call in case their face touches the screen. It also instructs the host to turn off the display to save power and prolong battery life. This eliminates the need for standalone IR proximity sensors and reduces system costs.

The Gen4 family delivers an array of technologies that competing solutions cannot match. Gen4 utilizes Cypress’s patented DualSense™ technology to execute both self-capacitance and mutual-capacitance measurements in the same device, and switch dynamically between the two in application. This ability enables glove tracking, stylus support, and face detection features, as well as TrueTouch’s unrivaled water rejection capability.

Gen4 is the world’s only controller family with a built-in 10V transmitter to drive the touch panel at 10V. Because signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is directly proportional to the voltage at which the panel is driven, this technology allows Gen4 solutions to sense smaller signals than competitors in the presence of high noise sources, eliminating disruptions in performance. Gen4 controls touchscreens up to 6 inches in smartphones, superphones, digital cameras, and media players, and touchscreens up to 10.1 inches in e-readers and tablets.

About TrueTouch
Cypress’s TrueTouch technology provides the industry’s best noise immunity, highest SNR, fastest refresh rates, lowest power consumption, and world’s best accuracy and linearity. The flexible TrueTouch solution allows customers to rapidly develop leading-edge solutions without having to buy turnkey modules. They have a choice of using touch sensors (glass or film) and LCDs from preferred partners, and can develop innovative mechanical designs ranging from flat to curved surfaces of varying thickness. In addition, TrueTouch devices offer Cypress’s legendary noise immunity with patented capacitive sensing technology that enables flawless operation in noisy RF and LCD environments. Additional TrueTouch information is available at touch.cypress.com.

About Cypress
Cypress delivers high-performance, mixed-signal, programmable solutions that provide customers with rapid time-to-market and exceptional system value. Cypress offerings include the flagship PSoC® 1, PSoC 3, PSoC 4, and PSoC 5 programmable system-on-chip families. Cypress is the world leader in capacitive user interface solutions including CapSense® touch sensing, TrueTouch touchscreens, and trackpad solutions for notebook PCs and peripherals. Cypress is a world leader in USB controllers, which enhance connectivity and performance in a wide range of consumer and industrial products. Cypress is also the world leader in SRAM and nonvolatile RAM memories. Cypress serves numerous major markets, including consumer, mobile handsets, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial, and military. Cypress trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol CY. Visit Cypress online at www.cypress.com.


Cypress, the Cypress logo, TrueTouch, PSoC, and CapSense are registered trademarks and DualSense is a trademark of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. All other trademarks are property of their owners.