Human Machine Interfaces

The consumer mobile market is growing tremendously. These consumer mobile devices all need some kind of human machine interfaces (HMI) such as keypads, touch screens, track balls, switches/buttons, and scroll wheels. Designers implementing HMI functions to their application need to do so with low-power, small form factor, and low cost constraints coupled with fast time-to-market demands. SiliconBlue's iCE65™ mobileFPGA™ devices offers ultra-low power, low cost, and small form factor packages along with already proven HMI solutions that help accelerate the design process.

SiliconBlue's iCE65 mobileFPGAs can serve as a companion chip to an applications processor implement different HMI functions such as touch screen control or a keypad interface. (See Figure 1).

SiliconBlue's iCE65 mobileFPGA devices can implement multiple human machine interface functions such as a touch screen interface or keypad scanning

Figure 1 - SiliconBlue's iCE65 mobileFPGA devices can implement multiple human machine interface functions such as a touch screen interface or keypad scanning.

Keypad Scanning

Keypad scanning is one of the most common HMI functions found in high-end smartphones. However, extending keypad scanning to an applications processor is challenging for many smartphone applications because it requires many I/O pins that are limited on an application processor. Using an iCE65 mobileFPGA device alongside an applications processor, designers can implement row and column matrix keypad scanning without sacrificing a large number of I/O.

Figure 2 - iCE65 mobileFPGA device used for matrix keypad scanning.

Touchscreen Control

Nowadays, touch screen is almost a must have in mobile phones. SiliconBlue's touch screen controller is ideal for mobile applications. It is simple, low cost, and easy to adapt to different applications. SiliconBlue's design example makes use of a digitizer chip to convert the analog signal levels from the touch panel to digital. It features a Successive Approximation Register (SAR) ADC and has built-in switches to switch touch screen electrodes between being driven and being assigned to input to the ADC.

Figure 3 - iCE65 mobileFPGA device used as a touchscreen controller.

Human Machine Interfaces

Learn

Evaluate

Purchase