Abstract
This paper presents a new touch sensing mechanism that detects different signals on a touch panel generated by an electric field formed from household power. Without requiring complicated transmitter and receiver circuits, a 16-channel front-end sensor and shared readout circuits are proposed to realize the new touch sensing mechanism. This touch sensing technique can be applied on the appliance control panel to detect the operation control. The signal readout circuit is implemented in a 0.18-?m CMOS process, occupied an area of 2.64 mm2. The proposed sensing technique achieves 46.5-dB signal-to-noise ratios with finger touch. With battery power supply of 1.8V and 2.5V, total power consumption of the proposed readout circuit is measured as just 2mW.