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IN TOUCH WITH TOMORROW

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 21, 2008

NEW YORK - It's been a good year for touch screens.

The launch of the first iPhone model a year ago boosted interest in the technology tremendously, and the updated model that debuted July 11 likely will stoke enthusiasm further. Touch-screen manufacturers are going flat out, and more devices will soon be controlled by the tip of your finger.

"After the iPhone came out, a lot of mobile-phone companies said 'Oh, I can make that kind of touch-screen mobile phone, too,'" said Jennifer Colegrove, analyst at iSuppli Corp.

In the United States, Sprint Nextel Corp. just introduced a touch-screen phone, the Samsung Instinct, that's reminiscent of the iPhone. Verizon Wireless this year introduced its first two phones that use touch screens as their main interface. Research In Motion Ltd. Is thought to be making a touch-screen version of the BlackBerry. Sony Ericsson is bringing out its first touch-screen model in a few months.

Jon Mulder, product marketing manager for Sony Ericsson's U.S. arm, said touch screens have become a "hygiene factor" - a must-have for phones that want to compete in the high end of the U.S. market.
Colegrove projects that 341 million touch screens will be shipped worldwide this year, up from 218 million in 2007 and 81 million in 2006.

In the first half of 2007, before Apple Inc.'s iPhone launched, a big maker of touch sensors for portable electronics would make perhaps a million units per month, Colegrove said. "Then in the second half of 2007, suddenly they received huge orders, so they ramped up their production to maybe 3 or 4 million units per month."

Apart from the iPhone, demand for touch screens is driven by new phones in Asia that allow the user to write Chinese or Japanese characters on the screen, usually with the aid of a stylus. That's much easier than entering those characters with a keypad, Colegrove said.

Most touch sensors are made in Japan, Taiwan and China by companies that are relatively unknown in the United States, such as Nissha Printing Co., Wintek Corp. and Truly Semiconductors Ltd.

Balda AG of Germany supplied the touch sensor for the first iPhone through a joint venture with a Chinese company.

In the United States, major players in the touch field are 3M Co., though it mainly supplies larger screens for ATMs and monitors rather than portable electronics, and Synaptics Inc., which supplies touchpads for Apple's laptops. Others, such as Cypress Semiconductor Corp., make the chips that control the sensors.

Synaptics has a growing business supplying touch sensors for cell phones as well. It uses a particular type of touch sensor known as "projected capacitive." Before the iPhone came along, Synaptics was struggling to convince manufacturers that the technology was better than the cheaper "resistive" screens.

"The technology was there to use years before the iPhone," said Andrew Hsu, Synaptics' touch-screen expert.

Capacitive sensors are more durable, interfere less with the screen's image and can sense the touch of more than one finger at a time - allowing for the iPhone's signature "multitouch" ability. They cost about $20 for an iPhone-size sensor, compared with about $5 for a resistive screen.

Frustrated with the lack of interest, Synaptics put together its own concept phone, the Onyx, in 2006 to demonstrate the capabilities of the touch screen, including multitouch input. LG of Korea then used Synaptics' touch sensor in its Prada phone, which came out some months before the iPhone. But it was Apple that broke the barriers, Hsu said.

"The best showcase of this technology has been the introduction of a production model that works very well," he said.
Colegrove expects projected capacitive sensors to be among the fastest-growing technologies, with more than 35 million units shipped this year, mainly for the iPhone and iPod Touch. That's up from 10 million units last year and only a handful in 2006. But the more traditional resistive type will continue to make up most of the volume, especially because they're better suited to stylus input for the Asian market.

The touch-screen craze is spreading beyond cell phones as well.

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates has said touch sensors and speech recognition are a focus of the company's development efforts. Hewlett-Packard Co. introduced a desktop PC with touch screen last year and updated the line this year. Touch screens have become standard for GPS devices, a fast-selling category.
Touch screens are the ideal solution, Hsu said, for maximizing screen size while keeping gadgets small. They also make for easy-to-use devices, because each application can present its own controls, rather than relying on shared hardware buttons.

"There's really no room left for buttons," Hsu said.

SENSING A CHANGE

These are some common touch-screen technologies:

•Resistive

This is the most common kind for portable electronics. It's found on Palm Treos, HTC phones and the Samsung Instinct.

Two layers of clear conductive material lie on top of the display. Pressing them together makes current flow between them. Resistive displays are cheap and can be used with a simple plastic or metal stylus, but are prone to damage because the sensor is on top of the display.

Most resistive screens need to be calibrated periodically, or the touch sensing may not line up with the display. Also, the sensor degrades the image quality slightly. It's difficult, but not impossible, for resistive screens to register more than one touch at the same time.

•Projected capacitive

Pioneered by the Apple iPhone and the LG Prada, this touch sensor can lie underneath a protective sheet of glass, making it more durable. The mere proximity of a finger or other object of similar size changes the electrical properties of the sensor's conducting layers, which is why the iPhone is so good at sensing light touches and quick swipes.

Projected capacitive sensors can register more than one touch at a time. On the iPhone, spreading the fingers apart causes a Web page or image to zoom in, while pinching them together zooms out.

•Surface capacitive

This is an older technology used in ATMs, information kiosks and other large appliances. Like resistive screens, they usually need recalibration, and because they're mounted on top of the display glass, they're prone to damage and wear.

•Surface acoustic wave

Also used for ATMs and other large screens, these touch screens vibrate very rapidly. Sensors pick up how the touch of a finger affects those vibrations. The screens can be crisp and clear, but the sensor can't be sealed against the elements.

The Associated Press

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