A mobile-display-driver IC embedding a capacitive-touch-screen controller system

Touch-screen technologies, which are at the forefront of a design revolution in user interfaces, are coming into the spotlight. Lately, capacitive-type touch-screens have been widely adopted in high-end mobile applications mainly because they offer multi- and soft-touch features together with higher durability and superior light transmittance over resistive-type touch-screens. Meanwhile, manufacturing costs have slowed down the adoption of this technology in low-end applications. Many display-module makers are trying to reduce system cost by merging the touch-screen panel (TSP) with the display panel [1]. At the same time, there is a desire for small-form-factor modules, which is driving an effort to reduce the number of components [2]. Hence in this paper we integrate 2 separate functions: a touch screen controller (TSC) and display driver IC (DDI), into a single chip.