Capacitive touchscreen controller is safety-certified for home appliances
Safety mechanisms are required in home appliances such as ovens, cooker hobs, washing machines and dryers under the European IEC 60730 and US UL 60730 Class B specifications. Microchip believes its maXTouch MXT336UD-MAUHA1 capacitive touchscreen controller family are the only touchscreen controllers available today to offer pre-certified, Class B firmware.
The family includes three controllers, the MXT112UD-MAUHA1, the MXT228UD-MAUHA1 and the MXT336UD-MAUHA1, for different screen sizes, ranging from 2.0 to 8.0 inches.
The Class B-certified touch controllers offer safety-related features that enable system shut off through an intuitive soft button on a touchscreen. This removes the requirement for an external safety-certified stop or cancel button and associated microcontroller. They also allow an appliance to detect a touchscreen or appliance failure and shut down automatically via self-testing capabilities. For example, if the glass breaks on a cooker top, the touchscreen will turn dark and shut off the machine, eliminating accidental damage.
As the number of touch-enabled home appliances continue to increase, the MXT336UD-MAUHA1 family shifts the required safety functionality to a simplified single touchscreen interface, to reduce OEM cost and improve time to market.
The MXT336UD-MAUHA1 family leverages a high signal to noise ratio (SNR) design and proprietary differential mutual acquisition scheme. This allows the machine to reliably detect and track multiple fingers on surfaces exposed to moisture, water, grease, even if the user is wearing gloves. Microchip notes.
Microchip also offers maXTouch Studio and maXTouch Analyzer software tools and a range of hardware tools including an evaluation kit, which is available upon request.
The MXT336UD-MAUHA1 family is available in volume production now.
Microchip Technology provides smart, connected and secure embedded control solutions. Its development tools and product portfolio enable customers to create designs which reduce risk while lowering total system cost and time to market. The company’s solutions serve more than 120,000 customers across the industrial, automotive, consumer, aerospace and defence, communications and computing markets.
Microchip’s headquarters are in Chandler, Arizona, USA.