A reference design is for a touch-based metal button which uses an inductance-to-digital converter technology to provide high-precision sense button presses on a metal surface.
Present-day cars have a lot of buttons because today’s cars come packed with many features including an infotainment system which requires user feedbacks through touch or mechanical controls. But over time mechanical controls are prone to failure and a touch sensor without any sound or vibrational feedback might result in wrong or no inputs making it less appealing.
So, Texas Instruments have released a touch on metal buttons with an integrated haptic feedback reference design named TIDA-00314. This reference design uses TI’s inductance-to-digital converter technology to provide a high-precision method to sense button presses on a metal surface and the company’s haptic drivers provide high-quality haptic feedback to the user. TIDA-00314 demonstrates techniques for system design, environmental compensation and electromagnetic interference protection.
These inductance-based touch buttons offer a very high-resolution and feature a programmable force touch button sensitivity. These reference design touch buttons can be placed underwater and in harsh environments and can work with gloves on. The TIDA-00314 can replace mechanical buttons with high-resolution inductive-sensing-based touch-on-metal detection and allows for customizable haptic feedback and waveforms to provide a high-quality user experience. The reference design doesn’t require any specific shape for buttons, so a single continuous sheet of metal is sealed and grounded against electromagnetic interference (EMI), water, oil, dirt and other contaminants. The reference design can also be used for pressure and multi-step button press sequences. The reference design is suitable for use in automobiles, homes, or even in harsh environments such as factories where high temperatures, vibration, dirt and dust can decrease the life of mechanical buttons.
The reference design has been tested by TI. To simplify the designing process, TI has provided the complete set of Design Resources including schematics, bill of materials, PCB layout, and test files, which can be downloaded from here.
