Cypress’s finger hover detection for TrueTouch touchscreens

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. announced support for hover detection for their capacitive touchscreen technology. The new feature, driven by Cypress’s TrueTouch, enables smart touchscreen solutions that anticipate the touch of a finger and enlarge content such as points on a map or the font of tiny website links to make them easier to find and select. Hover detection changes the navigation functions on mobile devices by adding a mouseover feature.

“Mobile phone manufacturers are looking for ways to differentiate their products, and features such as hover support and stylus recognition enable them to do just that,” said Dhwani Vyas, vice president of the User Interface Business Unit at Cypress. “Delivering a mouseover-like capability to the mobile phone space shows that Cypress continues to focus on creative features aligned with market demand. With so much emphasis on web content to the mobile handset, innovative navigation techniques are necessary to bring a familiar web-browsing experience to the user. Our customers are excited about TrueTouch because its flexible architecture enables them to continuously create and deliver value-added features.”

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 noise immunity with capacitive sensing technology that enables flawless operation in noisy RF and LCD environments.

Cypress is currently working with lead customers on hover support for the TrueTouch touchscreen solution. A hover support module is expected to be broadly available in the second quarter of 2010. It’s up to developers to find new and useful ways to incorporate this technology into the new information interaction interfaces.