Capacitive Touchpanels

In comparison with established resistive touch-panel technology, capacitive touch panels are clearly winning with shares of the market. The reason is clear, too. The consumer market is constantly coming up with new solutions for the use of capacitive touch panels, while the number of Smartphones and Tablet applications is continuing to grow too. And this means that conservative markets such as industry, medical technology, and automation are on the move as well. There are only a few isolated applications which do not allow for the use of a capacitive touch panel.

The function of a “Projected Capacitive Multi-Touch Panel” is based on two levels, coated with conductive patterns. One stands for the capacitive sensor, the other for the driver of the capacitive touch panel. If the capacitive touch panel is now operated using the fingers, a change in the capacitance occurs at the crossing points of the conductive patterns, which in turn leads to a signal change at the receiver. This structure allows for the sensor level to be located directly beneath the cover glass of the capacitive touch panel.