RIGHT FIRST TIME APPROACH

TouchNetix engineers follow a process which we have developed over many years and hundreds of successfully delivered projects to ensure that the end user requirements of your application are fully understood and that they are achievable. In many cases we expect to be able to offer a standard product from our range either as a sensor and electronics only solution or bundled as a full touch module with our standard front lens. In some cases it is more appropriate to generate a fully custom product which provides a more perfect match to performance and industrial design requirements and in some cases can be more cost-optimised for higher volume applications.

From the outset of any project we always have our end goal in mind which is successful integration of the capacitive touch system in your end product on your manufacturing line. Having understood and documented your concept and requirements the touchscreen is simulated, designed and prototyped to allow you to build first mechanical and electrical samples as soon as possible. Once the prototypes are approved the supply chain is finalised, including product testing at our factory. We also help you to establish appropriate testing in your end product once integrated if necessary. The final product is always a high performance capacitive touchscreen.

At TouchNetix, we know that nothing should be left to chance when designing and manufacturing capacitive touchscreens. To be certain that what will be manufactured will meet the requirement and to minimise product lead times, we have developed the most sophisticated simulation, modelling and design tools in the industry.

Using our tools, we are able to determine the main performance parameters of the capacitive touchscreen before the prototypes are built; we can also quickly determine the effect on performance of any options which you have in mind for your end application, for example, if the front glass thickness is adjusted or if the space for edge wiring is constrained.

Our tools have been developed to simulate a wide range of potential sensor materials, geometries, stackups and configurations. The tools can even be used to simulate and design true single layer metal mesh based sensors, including optical modifier algorithms for certain specialised applications.
For our customers, these tools mean that we can produce high performance capacitive touchscreens in some of the shortest lead times in the industry.

A deep and detailed knowledge of capacitive touch technology and the correct way to implement in challenging applications such as industrial, medical, and home appliances which it is implemented is not something which can be learned from a text book. The knowledge only comes from experience of successfully delivering many end user projects.

Capacitive touch technology is a cross-disciplinary topic, needing good background knowledge of electronics, materials science and of course a good knowledge of basic physics. Few of the companies working in capacitive touch technology have experience of more than a couple of years and almost no company outside of the driver IC vendors have any knowledge at all of how the driver IC functions at the detailed level or the way electric fields propagate through dielectric materials.

The TouchNetix knowledge base has been developed since 2004 when some of the first high performance capacitive touchscreens began to be implemented in mobile handsets. TouchNetix now has one of the broadest and deepest capabilities of implementing capacitive touch at the practical level and also has a very deep level of understanding of capacitive driver IC design and sensor implementation, including practical and successful mathematical simulation of performance.

For consumer applications, the majority of capacitive touchscreens only go through rudimentary testing or in many cases are not tested at all. This alone means that consumer grade touchscreens have no place in industrial or other mission critical products where the lifetime expectations are for many years and where the performance must be flawless over a wide range of operating conditions.

TouchNetix has developed proprietary parametric test tools which analyse in detail a broad range of the performance parameters of capacitive touchscreens according to the needs of the end user requirements. The tools are used in the factory where the sensors are manufactured, providing a 100% guarantee of performance. In many cases these tools are also implemented in the factory where the touchscreen is integrated into the end product and where it is important to ensure that the integration process has followed the correct procedures and as a final QA step.