Microchip Technology has expanded its maXTouch M1 family of touchscreen controllers, enhancing touch detection capabilities across a wider range of automotive displays. The expanded range now supports screen sizes from 2 to 42 inches, accommodating both free-form widescreen and compact formats.
The ATMXT3072M1-HC and ATMXT288M1 models are designed to work with various display sizes, supporting emerging technologies such as OLEDs and microLEDs. These controllers incorporate Microchip’s proprietary Smart Mutual touch acquisition scheme and advanced algorithms, boosting the touch Signal-to-Noise Ratio by up to 15 dB over previous generations. This technology is crucial for large, thin displays, such as on-cell OLEDs, where embedded touch electrodes face higher capacitive loads and increased noise coupling, which can lead to false or missed touch detections with other solutions.
Giovanni Fontana, director of Microchip’s human machine interface division, remarked, “Fuelled by evolving user expectations and the rise of software-defined vehicles, automotive cockpit displays are rapidly changing, and OEMs are pushing the boundaries in size, shape, and technology to deliver more immersive and intuitive user experiences. This expansion of our maXTouch M1 family addresses the complexities of integrating touch into these next-generation displays, offering robust and secure touch detection for a diverse array of formats.”
The ATMXT3072M1-HC is tailored for large, continuous touch sensor designs that span both the cluster and centre information display, catering to left-hand and right-hand drive vehicles with a single hardware design. This approach helps eliminate the need for dedicated hardware designs by OEMs, simplifying support for the global automotive market. The host-client ATMXT3072M1-HC solution appears as a single maXTouch device to the host MCU, streamlining system design by removing the need for an external MCU to merge touch coordinates.
For smaller screens, the ATMXT288M1 addresses the demand for compact automotive display solutions, such as traditional analogue clocks and AI driver assistants, where space constraints are critical. Its Thin Profile Fine-Pitch Ball Grid Array package reduces the printed circuit board area by 20% compared to previous models. This makes the ATMXT288M1, the first TFBGA package in the M1 family, ideal for space-sensitive applications using OLED or microLED technologies.
