Chandler, Ariz.—Microchip Technology Inc. has announced the mTouch AR1000 resistive touch-screen controllers, giving embedded designers the flexibility they need to quickly and easily implement analog resistive touch-screen interfaces.

The AR1000 controllers provide built-in decoding and advanced filtering, as well as controller-driven calibration, helping to lower costs and reduce time to market for embedded resistive-touch designs.

Prior to the AR1000 controller, embedded systems implementing resistive-touch user interfaces were limited to basic Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) that required extensive development and integration. The AR1000 controllers eliminate this type of trial-and-error engineering by providing proprietary touch-screen decoding algorithms that enable applications to receive fully processed, reliable touch coordinates.

The AR1000 controllers provide universal 4-, 5- and 8-wire support, as well as support for SPI, I²C and UART communication interfaces. They are well suited for resistive-touch designs in the consumer (mobile communication devices, Personal Digital Assistants, Global Positioning Systems, media players, printers), medical (patient-monitoring equipment), industrial (kiosks, touch-screen monitors, portable instruments, point-of-sale terminals), and automotive markets (navigation systems), among others.

Microchip also announced the mTouch AR1000 Development Kit (part # DV102011), which includes the AR1000 development board, a 7-in. four-wire resistive touch screen, a PICkit Serial Analyzer and all necessary interface cables, as well as a CD containing technical documentation and all necessary software.

The AR1000 series controllers are available in 20-pin QFN, SOIC and SSOP packages.

Pricing: AR1000 series controllers start at $1.15 each in 10K quantities; the kit is priced at $99.99.
Availability: Samples and volume production.
Datasheet: click here.

Microchip Technology, www.microchip.com