The three main operation modes of touchscreens: single-point and multi-point touch

Single-Point Touchscreen Operation

The development of touchscreen functionality has progressed from simple to complex. Early products only supported the most basic controls, requiring a single finger to touch a point on the screen. Examples include the operations we perform daily at supermarket POS terminals or airport check-in terminals. Previously, we could only operate the screen using mechanical buttons around its perimeter. Single-point touchscreens represent a significant advancement in user interface design. Of course, mechanical and newer capacitive touch-sensitive buttons are ubiquitous in our homes, offices, and elsewhere: mobile phones, landlines, remote controls, televisions, computers and their various peripherals, game consoles, refrigerators, microwave ovens, ovens, and in-vehicle electronic control devices such as radios and air conditioners. Now, as shown in the following figure, single-point touchscreens integrate the user control interface directly on the display screen, thus eliminating the need for traditional mechanical buttons.

This type of screen brings two major benefits to the user interface: firstly, it optimizes device design space, particularly beneficial for small devices, as the screen and buttons can be “installed” simultaneously in the same area; secondly, because buttons can be bound to any application within the operating system, the number of “buttons” used by a device can be virtually unlimited. The above functions are mainly based on resistive touch screen technology, which has been widely adopted in various applications such as consumer electronics, airport newsstands, grocery store POS terminals, and vehicle GPS systems.

Multi-Touch Screen Operation – Finger Direction Recognition

While single-touchscreen and resistive touchscreen technologies are impressive and revolutionary, they have two major drawbacks. First, resistive technology relies on the physical movement of the touchscreen [LU5], and although the impact [LU6] is small, its performance degrades after normal wear and tear. Second, this technology only supports single-point touch, meaning only one finger can be used at a time to perform a single action on a specific area of ​​the screen. Why is user interaction limited to a single finger? Apple made an immeasurable contribution to the user interface revolution with its iPhone, which used a capacitive touchscreen. Even in miniaturized devices like smartphones, multiple fingers are needed for optimal usability to fully utilize applications and the operating system. Thanks to Apple, users can now hardly imagine how they would have performed actions like zooming in and out of photos, or changing the orientation of the photo album or webpage view, without the support for two-finger gestures.

Other technology innovators continue to use this multi-touch technology on various device systems, including the Google G-1 and Blackberry Storm smartphones, MacBook Pro and HP TouchSmart desktops and laptops, portable media players, and many other applications. Now, users have new expectations, hoping to further improve how they interact with their electronic products, and various electronic products are vying to meet these new user demands.

Multi-Touch Screen Operation – Finger Position Recognition

Like single-touch screens, multi-touch screens that recognize finger position have a limitation: the number of touch points they can simultaneously recognize on the screen is limited. Why can only two touch points be recognized at a time? A user’s two hands have ten fingers, and when users interact with each other, more fingers appear on the screen. This is the origin of the multi-touch concept that recognizes finger position, enabling operation with more than two fingers.

Cypress calls this technology “Multi-Touch Global Input,” which further enhances the reliable usability of touchscreens, meeting the needs of a variety of feature-rich applications. Reliability refers to our ability to accurately capture raw data from all touch points on the screen with the highest granularity, minimizing the chaos caused by inaccurate touch point positioning. Usability refers to the ability of numerous powerful applications to benefit from two-handed or more-finger screen operation on screens of different sizes. 3D interactive games, keyboard input, and map operations are some of the main applications using this touchscreen functionality.

Fundamentally, Multi-Touch Global Input technology provides device and system OEMs with readily available all touch data, helping them unleash their creativity to develop next-generation, practical technologies.

As a provider of LCD driver solutions for the industrial sector, LEEHON Technology Co., Ltd. has established in-depth partnerships with many leading global LCD panel manufacturers, including BOE, TIANMA, IVO, AUO, Innolux, and Kyocera, and professionally supplies multi-brand, full-series industrial-grade LCD displays and customized solutions.