Why you need to use capacitive touch panels in your GUI design
Over the short term, the improvements that are in store for PCAP display technology will make it even more advantageous to consumer-oriented and industrial embedded systems.
For example, larger PCAP panels are in the works. The limiting factors for the size of PCAP displays have been high node count touch panel controllers that can provide high resolution for large panel areas. Additionally material systems, including low resistance optical clear conductors, as well as high performance optical bonding materials and processes, are the primary challenges facing manufacturers.
These limitations are being overcome by new multi-chip controller solutions that boost panel node counts from hundreds of nodes up to several thousand nodes. Research and development efforts are making substantial improvements in conductive materials to reduce the optical visibility of the electrode patterns and at the same time reduce trace resistances which are needed for larger panels. Larger panels will enable new embedded applications for PCAP technology such as interactive restaurant menus, video gaming and kiosks.
Higher performing adhesive materials and optical bonding techniques are also being developed to produce high optical clarity and thin uniform dielectric layers which form the capacitive nodes of the panel. Lamination of thin dielectric layers between large sheets of glass with high production yields is critical to panel performance and controlling manufacturing costs.
Mind Your User Experience
The user experience is just as critical for embedded industrial systems as it is for consumer electronic products. Certainly the shiny sophistication and eye-popping clarity of a PCAP display might be a fashion statement for the user of a smartphone, but that same PCAP technology delivers all those qualities as well as the durability, versatility and reliability that are critical to users of industrial embedded systems. Combining all of that into a PCAP display can add up to a compelling and engaging user experience for practically any embedded application.
Larry Mozdzyn, Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, Ocular, Inc., is a co-founder of Ocular. H has extensive engineering and manufacturing experience in the display industry and was responsible for the installation and start up of seven display manufacturing facilities in China between 1986 and 1996. Prior to co-founding Ocular, he was the manufacturing director for Polytronix and a process engineer at Texas Instruments. He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. John Groezinger is a field application engineer at Ocular.
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