TouchNetix has introduced a series of ready-made touch screen assemblies for displays up to 24in.

Based in Hampshire, the firm was founded to make high-reliability touch sensors that work in difficult electromagnetic environments, and has its own touch screen controller chip, branded aXiom.

The ready-made assembles, branded Chrominance, are supplied as a 0.7mm glass/ITO sensor hot-bonded to an FPC tail and an aXiom controller board – and the module can be bonded to a standard 3mm cover glass at the customer’s request.

“The sensor assemblies feature a signal-to-noise ratio of >80dB,” according to the company. “Low noise floor and high sensitivity enable the recovery of capacitive touch signals even when high levels of EMI from sources such as high-voltage cabling, electric motors or wireless communications are coupled to the sensor element via the user’s finger.”

This means, according to TouchNetix, that industrial equipment OEMs can integrate the assembly into their product to give the end-user out-of-the-box operation without site-specific touch-sensor tuning and configuration.

They are qualified to Class A according to the EN61000 standard Parts 4-6, 4-4 and 4-3 – indicating their immunity to conducted and radiated interference.

Operation though thick lenses is supported, including through glass up to 10mm thick. “Gain settings which are programmable per node mean that it can offer uniform touch sensitivity through 3D or curved lens which has variable thickness across the touch surface,” according to the company. It “also recognises touches by a user wearing thick gloves and works in the presence of moisture and liquids, making it suitable for use in outdoor, medical or marine equipment.”

The size range is 4.3in to 24in (diagonal), and there are evaluation kits for 12.1, 15.6 and 21.5in displays.

Reference driver code is available for Windows and Linux, and for real-time operating systems.

Features, with out extra electrodes:

16-bit x-y mapping of up to 10 concurrent touches
Proximity – eg display wake-up on hand approach
Hover sensing – eg sensing a finger at 5cm
Concurrent force sensing
Low latency haptic feedback control