Video: CSR Releases World's Thinnest Touchscreen

Touchscreens have been the dominant human-machine interaction device for the past couple years. It began with the introduction to mobile phones, and within a couple years of being introduced, they have nearly wiped phone's keypads off the face of the Earth. Next came the tablets. We are now beginning to see a large rise in the sales of tablets, and even laptops that can fold over into a tablet-style computer. While the more futuristic touchless technologies of the Kinect and Leap Motion are beginning to pop up, touchscreens are going to be sticking around for some time.

CSR is known for its innovative Bluetooth technologies. Just recently, the company released the newest member of the family, the CSR1010 chip. It is part of the CSR μEnergy range, which has been optimized to use much less power than other current leading Bluetooth chips. Along with being extremely efficient and small, it also connects easily to the latest mobile operating systems, such as Windows 8 and iOS7. The innovators at CSR then decided to integrate this tech with the latest tech in touchscreens to create a display that's almost as thin as paper.

Partnering with Atmel and Conductive Inkjet Technology (CIT) allowed the engineers to create what is the world's thinnest touchscreen interface. Atmel contributed its touch silicon, which detects the key input, while CIT provided the printing technology, which allows conductors to be printed on thin, flexible materials. Integrating these technologies with the Bluetooth chip, the touch interface will use only a fraction of the mobile device's energy while providing a response time of less than 12 milliseconds.

Overall, the screen measures in at just slightly less than 0.5 mm thick. CSR is looking to provide this interface for customers who could use the extra keypad input to navigate and manage their mobile devices.

Related posts: