中英对照学 英文: 触控屏幕IC市场已成兵家必争之地 [复制链接]

中英对照学 英文: Touch screen IC market gets touchy

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Touch screen technology has been around for years.

But for the most part, the technology has been a bust, that is, until Apple Inc. rolled out the iPhone with its eye-popping touch screen feature. Instead of using a merchant part, Apple is said to have devised its own touch screen ASIC for the iPhone.

Still, prompted by the iPhone and other trends, chip makers are scrambling to expand or enter the touch screen IC market. This emerging merchant business is expected to be fierce, and, pardon the pun, touchy.

The capacitive touch screen and touch button controller segment is projected to hit 1.3 billion units by 2012, a 44 percent compounded annual growth rate, according to Gartner Inc.

''Capacitive touch screens are rapidly becoming common in mobile handsets, spurred by the success of the iPhone,'' said Amy Leong, an analyst with Gartner, at an event here.

''The next big 'touch' opportunity would be in personal computers,'' Leong said. ''In the past, capacitive touch technology has been widely used in touch pads for notebook PCs. However, manufacturers are now implementing capacitive touch technologies into PCs and PC peripherals in the form of touch screens, proximity touch-sensing buttons or sliders and multi-touch mouse pads.''

The key driver for the PC? ''A key trigger for the touch screen proliferation in the PC segment will be the availability of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system,'' she said. ''Windows 7 is the first operating system optimized for multi-touch features.''

There are a number of touch-screen technologies: resistive, capacitive, surface acoustic wave, infrared and many others.

''There is no perfect touch technologies,'' Leong said. ''For the emerging PC touch market, there is no obvious technology winner yet. The capacitive touch technology appears to be the more mature one for the early adopters. However, the cost of the screen is increasingly more expensive with larger screen size. Therefore, for the main stream notebook PC screen size around 15 inches, it costs more than 3X of the standard screen cost today. Its high cost is opening doors to other competitive technologies such as the multi-touch resistive technology and optical technology.''

Reach out and touch
Atmel, Broadcom, Cypress, Microchip, Renesas, Synaptics and others sell touch-screen chip technology.

And there have been a wave of announcement. Last year, Atmel signed a definitive agreement to acquire Quantum Research Group Ltd., a developer of capacitive sensing IP and solutions for user interfaces.

Then, rival Microchip Technology Inc. last year acquired Hampshire Company Inc. for an undisclosed price. Hampshire is a supplier of universal touch screen controller electronics and software technology.

In March, Renesas Technology and Omron Corp. joined forces to develop capacitive touch sensor technology. As part of the deal, initially Renesas will integrate Omron's touch sensor technology into its R8C range of 16-bit microcontrollers, which are used in industrial and consumer applications.

In May, Atmel announced an integrated capacitive touch screen technology -- maXTouch -- providing touch screen performance that exceeds today's leading edge solutions. Atmel's capacitive touch technology, combined with its AVR microcontroller, provides unlimited touch capability, the fastest response times and the highest acquisition precision, according to Atmel.

Atmel also announced the new release of the QTouch Library, a royalty free software library. Without the need for external devices, the QTouch Library adds capacitive touch capabilities to its AVR and AVR32 microcontrollers.

In June, Synaptics Inc. unveil its new ClickPad solution, a touchpad for consumer and business users that want larger multi-finger gesture enabled TouchPads in smaller notebook designs, particularly netbooks.

Moving into a hot market, Integrated Device Technology Inc. (IDT) this week purchased the touch sensor technology assets from Leadis Technology Inc.

触控屏幕IC市场已成兵家必争之地


触控屏幕技术其实已经发展了好一段时间，但却一直到Apple推出具备迷人触控屏幕功能的iPhone之后才咸鱼翻身；Apple还为iPhone开发了专属的触控屏幕ASIC。看好触控屏幕IC市场前景，不少芯片供货商前仆后继试图切入或拓展此一技术领域版图，但这个新市场恐怕会竞争越来越激烈，而且非常敏感。

根据市场研究机构Gartner的预测，电容式触控屏幕与触控按键控制器市场，将在2012年达到13亿颗的出货量规模，年复合成长率44%。「拜iPhone风潮之赐，电容式触控屏幕快速成为手机的常见配备；」Gartner分析师Amy Leong预言：「触控屏幕技术的下一个大商机将会是在PC应用领域。」

市场上没有完美的触控技术

「在过去，电容式触控技术曾被广泛应用在笔记型计算机的触控板上，而现在制造商则是将该技术以触控屏幕、近距离触控感应按键/滑条(sliders)、以及多点触控滑 鼠板(multi-touch mouse pads)等形式，引进PC与PC外围设备。」Leong表示。那触控技术在PC应用领域的关键推手为何？她认为，其中一个关键动力会是即将问世的微软 Windows 7操作系统，因为它是首款针对多点触控功能做了最佳化的操作系统。

此外触控屏幕技术有很多种，包括电阻式 (resistive)、电容式(capacitive)、表面声波(surface acoustic wave)、红外线等等... Leong表示，并没有哪种触控技术是完美的，目前应用在PC市场的各种触控技术，也还没有明显的胜出者；不过电容式触控技术显然是对早期使用者来说较为 成熟的一种。


但电容式触控屏幕的成本有随着屏幕尺寸增加而越来越高的趋势；以主流笔记型计算机15吋左右的屏幕来说，电容式触控屏幕的成本是现有标准屏幕的3倍以上。电容式触控屏幕的高贵身价，给了其它竞争技术机会，像是多点电阻式触控技术，以及光学技术。

触控屏幕技术供货商活力十足

以 厂商来看，目前触控屏幕芯片供货商包括Atmel、Broadcom、Cypress、Microchip、Renesas、Synaptics等等，气 氛也十分热络──去年，Atmel宣布并购电容式感测技术IP暨使用者接口解决方案供货商Quantum Research；接下来Microchip也宣布并购通用触控屏幕控制气软硬件方案供货商Hampshire。

今年三 月，Renesas与Omron宣布合作开发电容式触控传感器技术，Renesas并将把Omron的触控感测技术整合在工业与消费性应用的R8C系列 16位微控制器中。今年五月，Atmel发表整合式电容触控屏幕技术maXTouch，该技术与其AVR系列微控制器结合，号称可提供快速反应、高精确 度的触控屏幕性能。

六月份，Synaptics也发表了名为ClickPad的触控板解决方案，能为消费者与企业使用者在较 小型的笔记型计算机(特别是Netbook)上，提供较大范围的多手指控制功能。此外，IDT也在近日宣布透过收购Leadis的触控传感器技术部门，进军 这个正夯的市场。

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