Apple patents touch screen design that fixes ghost touches from metal objects
Apple has been granted a patent for a new layout of electrical components inside capacitive touch screens. The design adds extra grounding wires between the touch sensors to better handle electrical charge from objects that are not well-grounded, such as a finger wearing a metal ring. This helps the screen detect the touch more accurately and prevents false signals, or "negative pixels," from appearing on nearby sensors.
In the filing’s own words
Touch electrode architectures for reducing the occurrence of negative pixels in mutual capacitance touch sensor panels that are caused by poorly grounded objects are disclosed. A touch electrode architecture can utilize mutual capacitance unit cells, each of which include a drive electrode, a sense electrode, and one or more ground bars. The one or more ground bars can provide an increased capacitive path to ground for a poorly grounded finger, which can result in a larger reduction in mutual capacitance between the drive and sense electrodes, improving touch detection. In addition, the increased capacitive coupling between the object and ground reduces the amount of charge that couples back onto nearby sense electrodes, which can reduce the negative pixel that can occur at those electrodes and reduce the number of touch detection errors. The one or more ground bars can be formed in the same layer as the drive electrode.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. A mutual capacitance touch sensor panel, comprising: a plurality of drive electrodes formed in a first layer, each drive electrode of the plurality of drive electrodes extending along a first direction; a plurality of sense electrodes formed in a second layer different from the first layer, each sense electrode of the plurality of sense electrodes extending along a second direction different from the first direction; and a plurality of ground bars formed in the first layer, wherein the plurality of drive electrodes, the plurality of sense electrodes, and the plurality of ground bars are included in an array of touch pixels, each touch pixel in the array of touch pixels including one drive electrode and one sense electrode, the array of touch pixels including: a first touch pixel adjacent to a second touch pixel, and a third touch pixel adjacent to the second touch pixel disposed with a first ground bar of the plurality of ground bars between the first touch pixel and the second touch pixel and a second ground bar of the plurality of ground bars between the second touch pixel and the third touch pixel, wherein the first ground bar extends along the first direction and the second ground bar extends along the second direction, wherein the first touch pixel is surrounded by first portions of the plurality of ground bars, the second touch pixel is surrounded by second portions of the plurality of ground bars, and the third touch pixel is surrounded by third portions of the plurality of ground bars.
Facts
- Company
- Apple (Apple Inc.)
- Official title
- Apparatus to reduce negative pixel from capacitive touch
- Patent number
- US12761760B2
- Application number
- 18791964
- Filed
- Aug 1, 2024
- Granted
- Oct 13, 2026
- Inventors
- 2
- Claims
- 12
Classified under
G06F 3/0443 Physics & computingG06F 3/0445 Physics & computingMore from Apple in Phones & computers
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.