Corning Inc. (Corning, New York) and Atmel Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) are working on thinner flat and curved touchscreens.
Their collaboration combines Atmel's XSense touch sensors with 0.4mm damage-resistant Gorilla Glass. Gorilla Glass is a form of toughened glass made by Corning that rose to prominence for its use in the Apple iPad and has found use in portable electronic equipment.
The Atmel Xsense circuit design enables narrow device borders and more viewing area. This will allow the development of phones, tablets, notebooks, and other multi-touch devices with sleeker, lighter, and more contemporary touch interfaces, Corning said.
Touch modules using cover glass thinner than 0.5 mm with relatively low conductive materials have been difficult to implement due to low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and aliased touch events, resulting in unsatisfactory multi-touch performance. However, the combination of Xsense 0.4mm or curved Gorilla Glass, accurately tracks multi-touch events, the companies asserted.
"Our collaboration with Atmel accelerates the move toward thinner cover glass and enables the use of curved touchscreens for our customers designing next-generation applications," said James Nagel, division vice president of program development for Gorilla Glass at Corning Specialty Materials, in a statement.
A sample device that pairs XSense flexible touch sensors with 0.4mm thick Gorilla Glass is due to go on display at Computex, which takes place in Taipei, Taiwan, from June 3 to 7.
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