Elan Microelectronics Corporation v. Apple, Inc.

Filing 377

EXHIBITS 2-8 to the Declaration of Dr. Ravin Balakrishnan In Support of Apple Inc.'s Motion for Summary Judgment of Noninfringement filed byApple, Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 3, # 2 Exhibit 4, # 3 Exhibit 5, # 4 Exhibit 6, # 5 Exhibit 7, # 6 Exhibit 8)(Greenblatt, Nathan) (Filed on 8/4/2011)

Download PDF
EXHIBIT 5 United States Patent [11] [19] Evans [54] [45] Inventor: John W. Evans, La Jolla, Calif. [73] Assignee: Mar. 22, 1988 Primary Examiner-Gerald L. Brigance Assistant Examiner-Mahmoud Fatahi-yar . Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Edward W. Callan CAPACITANCE·VARIATION·SENSITIVE TOUCH SENSING ARRAY SYSTEM [75] 4,733,222 Patent Number: Date of Patent: Integrated Touch Arrays, Inc., La Jolla, Calif. [57] ABSTRACT OTHER PUBLICATIONS A capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array system includes an array of electrodes where each electrode is a connected series of conductive tabs and forms either a row or a column ofthe electrode array; an array of drive lines where each drive line is capacitively cou: pled to a plurality of the electrodes; a drive signal generator for applying alternating signal packets to the drive lines; an array of sense lines where each sense line is capacitively coupled to a plurality of the electrodes so that signals are derived from the electrodes when drive signals are applied to the drive lines. The number of electrodes is equal to the product of the number of drive lines and the number of sense lines. Based on values derived from signals on the sense lines, a microprocessor provides information associated with touch by an operator. The array of electrodes may be configured so as to result in a touch-actuated keyboard where the number of keys is equal to the product of the number of row electrodes and the number of column electrodes; or the array of electrodes may be configured so that finger touch position in a single large touch responsive area can be sensed and processed for use in control applications. Irwin-IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Jan. 1983, vol. 25, No.8, p. 4097. 45 Claims, 22 Drawing Figures [21] Appl. No.: 853,428 Apr. 18, 1986 [22] Filed: Related U.S. Application Data [63] Continuation-in-part of 8er. No. 566,045, Dec. 27, 1983, abandoned. [51] Int. Cl.4 [52] U.S. Cl [58] [56] G06F 3/02 340/365 C; 340/365 R; 200IDIG.1 Field of Search 340/365 C, 365 R, 365 S, 3401712,365 VL; 178/18; 200IDIG. 1; 400/485, 477 References Cited U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 3,921,166 11/1975 Volpe 4,305,135 12/1981 Dahl et aI 4,359,720 11/1982 Chai et aI 340/365 C 340/3658 340/365 C 49 RESET 51 r-- ·48 -~ PRO~~~~OR l-. : 17 DRIVE SIGNAL GENERATOR COLUMN DRIVE LINES DL5-B ROW DRIVE LINES DLI-4 ! -J ~ 49) RESET r-~ AID 45 16 , I CONTROL LOGIC 41 J ~ 51, ~ ,48 ~-~ I DATA : :L... PROCES SOR .JI 42 DRIVE SIGNAL 17 PATTERN DRIVE SIGNAL GEN ERATOR DRIVE SIGNAL TIMING ft a ~ J~ Iooool ~ 00 rESLC 1-64 f' ELECTRODE-TO-SENSE LINE r CAPACITORS tSENSE LINES SL 1-8 10 f\ I ~ ROW ELECTRODES E FIG. I - DLEC 1-64 ....---.-1 COLUMN ELECTRODES E 33-64 ROW ELECTRODES E 1-32 Iooool 8, TOUCH SENSING ARRAY COLUMN 'f.---I-"'-ELECTRODES E33-64 Iooool N COLUMN DR IVE LI N ES DL 5-8 ------n 11 --1 DRIVE L1NE-TO- ELECTRODE v CAPAC ITORS f\ 11 ROW DRIVE L1NES;~L 1-4 ~ -.. ~ w -.. ~ u.s. Patent DLEC 1 - DL I DL 2 ) 4~ DL,EC - DL 3 lj~ i-- --- DLEC 3 4~ DL4 DLEC 41 DL 5 cIDLEC -q: DL6 33 DLEC34 DLEC35 DL8 ES LC SL2 SL5 SL6 SL7 SL8 lf~ 'Y- ~~ lrt AS I.C 3) _. - r-rOD< I a~ I I I I 1 1 I -- ,- ---- --I I A4 I r<!D- I I I I -- -- --- ----+ I -}- I I _L._ I I TOUCH SENSING ARRAY 10 TC ES LC 64 -+-+-+-1-- - - ES -- ES I I - ---= -::- -:.:- -, I --- I I I ----- I 1r<J1> I r<J(> I I : I I I I ~r----:---?'7 E31 E64 FIG. 2 ES LC4 - lit lt~ ES LC6 ~ ES LC 63 I I ~~ . -In: - r E LC2 If.- lti- ~t" --- I E30 ES LC I, ESLJC61 I E29 4~ ES LC 37 ES LC 39 --- SL4 E3 4~ DlfC 64 ~ ES LC 34 SL3 E2 -~~~LEC62 63 DLEC LC 35 I ES LC 36 ~~ ~ :4'1- ~~ AS L~ 38 ES l;C40 SLI - DLEC 61 ~~ t..~ EI -- ~~ DLEC 3-9 ~~ DLEC 36 ~l DLEC 40 4' DL7 DLEC 37 4~ DLEC38 4,733,222 Sheet 2 of 12 Mar. 22, 1988 I I I I I I u.s. Patent Mar. 22, 1988 ----o rI I DLEC r" E 1 I Sheet 3 of 12 I 4,733,222 - I. 1 --- : ESLC 1-1_LLri-+:(c=:~""I-~_. .,.---~\d.TTA~B sJ : \~VCG I SCG ...... _J._ -,-- _A._ " FIG. 3 DIMENS ION OF TAB COMPLEX PRINTED ON PROTECT IVE FI LM 26,,}oo-------- -------..j 27.-'-)==========;;;1' - OVERLAY (OPTIONAL) 5)'---" PROTECTIVE FILM, BACK22 II--------~-- ....... PRINTED WITH INDICIA 22) =:.L_ 20) --I:=======::J.',.==:::;=:::r-- 21) i.. - -.l~ 3_) ROW ELECTRODE TAB SUBSTRATE COLUMN ELECTRODE TAB MECHANICAL SUPPORT SHIELDING 2_4....1) FIG. 4 ~t!~33 m~ FIG. 5 SL I ESLC 35:: ESLC36 DL5 OL I OL2 OL3 OL6 SL I SL 2 ~ :l ~I ;1 1:1 ~, ;, ,:,:, I' I " ''II :I I: : III I' ',II II II II !: 'I I: '. II:: II IL 1---. II ~ EI <--II E2J : Gt-r . ---'j I ....-.-. --" ~ J Ii I! :1 ~ L...J"" " =._lL~~\~-i· E29) I II .! I ll-t" : If ::; I: :-_JI :: i :b.;1f{OLEC 31 E 32 LI.,,;tDL EC 32 ) II ~ 00 22 ~ '117!v' :Z~ ., ... ••• TOUCH SENSING ARRAY 10 ::::: ,t1 :, ~ ur- i2;!Jw . •... : ~-- ,n---, • 1 I ESLC 32 AT> \ ---. <:'--i1 ES~C-29.:p1r=GJffiI~:: 29 E30 ~ ::DLEC ESLC 30 J II') JLI!:! DLEC 30 E31 :"I!" I,' IbJj ESLC 31 -->: , IL-:f'-!L . I ) ".o.o • ••• I,~~ II I l!:__", II'L_ II "1 ~ ~ .... I- :' I'~l iriN :: !Ljf M-~-~ I ~ (IIIIfoo.. :1 rr,-l'""" ,I 1--- ~ ....... l_.,1 'I I;;; 'I II ESLC~~: / ,L/~ "Ql&iESLC~O ES C37 E:t =9i'IL=_~-r*: =ii'F=iic'~~;==;====:=====r==;rAII=;-:;~,....-:ti=,:iI=,~=;-LJf=r--;;Ji=rL.!i== II II I I, I I ~ rn OL4 \:, SL3~i': ',',:" LECI ~1111--SL4~II!IIIIII, ,1""- -- 1'1 ESLC I I II It '.-IhJ!!ii"\L~C 2 S L 5~1 IIU'I : 1'1 'I' ~u III III, S L 7 --.....! 01 ""'HI SL 8 ------tl II l 38 I \ _\ gt~ ::: ~ J:v I' I' I 'I I II' , L I I I 1)1 lir=.-=;;- SL6~ 7 C34 ~ gJ :~~ (D t ~ d a ..... ~ ~ N .a;.. -.. ~ ~ -.. u.s. Patent Mar. 22, 1988 DSP I DL DSP 3 DSP2 4,733,222 Sheet 5 of 12 DSP 4 DSP I DSP2 DSP3 DSP 4 I 1 i I I :---lI-l--T---7'--;--;--V ee I : I I Vss I IDS~: DL 2 I -' : I I I I I I I I DL3 I 1IllllIII: I Vss I I I, Vee I -1-,..-_+'-+-~-;:--Vss __ I , ' I I I I • I .:......-----<:c--'I- DL 4 :I 1 I I DL5 " I I I DL6 I :: I I I, : V I. ?S ~L-_:-L:--I--T---j-:~---"IIij: I I I ~ I : 1 I 'IDS I I I I 1,---.JL-i-_l-...I--+-7--'_~-""""'---r---t-.....,.-Vcc ' I I I I"'; I : I I V~~ I I I I IIlI111I IUIlll!I : 1 Vee I I Vss I I I I I I I I I I I' I : I': : I' I DL7 V ee Vss I I I I I , I I I , I I : I;DS:Ui : L I DL8 I I I ' . , --+--+----c,---;_-;r-+--~ L :::'::~---l---l---+-..,..---t--rl - ~ IpOWER ON, RESET Vss I I - 2) & PROCESS SSV 1-32 J 6~ PROCESS UNTOUCHED STATE 3 I Vee £1 liN ITIALIZE f SCAN Vee V ss FIG. 6 o J) + , YES CHANGES SMALL? NO I 7) ~ NO VALID I TOUCH? I I YES I INVALID RESPONSE ~ FIG. 7 5) PROCESS VALID TOUCH J PROCESS I I u.s. Patent Mar. 22, 1988 FROM STEP 4,733,222 Sheet 6 of 12 0 INPUT SSVI-32, STORE AS BVI-32 AND ALSO AS RVI-32 FIG. 8 TO STEP 2 FROM STEP 1 ! r 2 .1 INPUT SSV 1- 321 ~ (2.2 2.4~ RV DRIFT COMPENSATION DUE? YES _I RVk:=RVk+SIGN(SSVk-RVk) I FOR 1 :5 k :5 32 I I NO 2.5) 2.3 YES IISSVk-RVk! > RVB ANY I :5 k :5 32? I RVk:= SSVk I BRC;=O FOR 1:5 k :5 321 J NO 2.6 I SSVVk: =SSVk- BVk FOR 1:5 k:5 32 ~ 3.1 l IllSSVVk < VVB EACH I :5 k :5 32? NO! TO STEP YES CHANGE SMALL TO STEP CHANGE NOT SMALL 4 FIG. 9 6 ~ rJ). • UNTOUCHED STATE SMALL CHANGES 6.1 FROM STEP 3 BDCC:= BDCC + 2 ~ ~ BVk:= BVk + SIGN (SSVVk) FOR I s k S 32 FIG. 10 NO ~ ~ 6.4 NO I t lj . TO STEP 2 '" l-l ~ 7.1 NO NOT VALID TOUCH FROM STEP 4 I I IF BRC:= BRC + I BDCC > 0 THEN BDCC: =BDCC - I I BRC = BRCL NO flo+. i NO I ~ FIG. II =--./ 1 7.2) BVk: = RVk I S k S 32 I FOR I ~ T O STEP 7 I f.'"t YES ? I NO NOT VAll D TOUCH I -:l 8, l-l N 7.3 FURTHER PROCESSING OF INVALID RESPONSE gJ ~ TO STEP 2 ~ 5.2 FURTHER PROCESSING OF VALID TOUCH I ~ TO FIG. 12 STEP 2 ~ ti u.s. Patent Mar. 22, 1988 4,733,222 Sheet 8 of 12 EI E2 E3 E4 E5 FIG. 13 641 63) , OVERLAY (OPTIONAL) PROTECTIVE FILM, BACKPRINTED I WITH INDICIA 54 1 " I I I I 55) I I I i 56) ROW ELECTRODE (E 1- 32) THIN PLASTIC FILM SUBSTRATE COLUMN ELECTRODE (E33-64) THIN PLASTIC FILM SUBSTRATE 60 3 58 1 57) 59) 61") ROW DRIVE LINE OR SENSE LINE THIN PLASTIC FILM SUBSTRATE COLUMN DRIVE LINE OR SENSE LINE I MECHANICAL SUPPORT 1 62) SHIELDING FIG. 14 ~ rn EI~ E2""'/:: ::::::: .. : :: ::::: :: ~ ft :: a '....--- FIG. /5 A ------- FIG. 158 ~ ~'~~~::::::";'~ ~ .- . E31~:;;:::;::::::::'" - - - -------E32-,' ::: . :., :::::::::::::::: \C 00 00 . - -~&~- -_._ r ~ ........~_.... . o &.A.-..oo...a ... __ a • • - ~---.--- - ~ h I " II • ••• ••••• I Ii' _. II ~ OL2 OL3 OLI-" )) (OL4 $ ~t1~~mm!! §tg~;11ili:! -ii· . FIG. 15C I rufruf~TItU1 S!~~~ ll!11l$ • SL6 SL7 SL8 $ ~ tD OL5 OL6 OL7 OL8 FIG. /5 D a \C 8, ~ N ~ .... ~ N ~ u.s. Patent Mar. 22, 1988 4,733,222 Sheet 10 of 12 VALID TOUCH FROM STEP 5.1 ! 5.2.1 k: = THE NUMBER OF THE MAXIMUM OF ERVV 1-32 j: = k - I m:= k+1 5.2.2 ERVVO:=O ERVV33:=0 PREMAX: =ERVV j MAX: =ER VVk POSTMAX: =ERVVm ERVV 33: = POS I T I VE PART OF SSVVI7 5.2.3) Y-COORDINATE:=ROUND TO NEAREST INTEGER [4 (k+ {( POSTMAX- PREMAX) I (MAX+!POSTMAX-PREMAXI) })'3 ] 5.2.4 k:=THE NUMBER OF THE MAXIMUM OF ER VV33-64 j: = k- I m: = k+ I 5.2.5 ERVV32: =0 ERVV 65: =0 PREMAX: = ERVVj MAX:= ERVVk POSTMAX: =ERVVm 5.2.6/ X-COORD INATE: = ROUND TO NEAREST INTEGER [4 (k+{( POSTMAX-PREMAX)I (MAX+I POSTMAX-PREMAX I)) )-3] 5.2.7 ADDITIONAL PROCESSING OF VALID TOUCH TO ST EP FIG. 16 2 u.s. Patent Mar. 22, 1988 4,733,222 Sheet 11 of 12 FIG. 17 DL I DSP I I DSP2 DSP3 DSP4 DSP5 DSP6 ::tf----+~--i;: :;;;;mT---+~;----7---J----+--ii-Vee Vss :::.D=.L..=2c...-;.:-;-----d-mm----'-!----'-t----'--t----''--+-Vee I : Vss I I I ~e I ~L-_+-:-:---i---i---J..--;---'--,---i--,- Vss . DL 4 DL : I i: I I I 1 IDS 1 ------..... ' Vee Vss .1"1 III, 5: : II I I DL6 Vee Vss I I j---t-I-;- Vee : IDS Vss I Vee I 1 :::.D:::.L..:..7-!..~ _ _...!---.---'_-t--7-_ _-=111"",1'!-_-!--..1-_--I----'-Vss I I '~e :::.D:=.L..:::8-:--i-----;--T---!-:-----;I,.--r---F=:--~;__';_Vss I I FROM STEP 0 2.2 CALCULATE SSVVk ADk: = ADk + SS VVk FOR IS kS 48 FIG. 18 IF I SSVVk I < S8 FOR ISkS 48 THEN SC: = SC+I t -_ _ y_ES -+i ADk:=O FOR SC:=O NO y ES t -_ __ _ TO STEP 4 .... TO STEP 6 u.s. Patent Mar. 22, 1988 Sheet 12 of 12 F/G./9 4,733,222 NO 4.3 .-----ooool SECOND ADk OVER THR 2 REQUIRED? YES 4.5 ROWMAX 2 >THR 2" I-'-'-NO~_ _-..I 4.6 ONLY ROWMAX I a ROWMAX 2> TOl I? YES VALID ONSET NO 4.7 NO PRESENT? I--_ _-.I NO 4.10 SECOND ADk OVER THR 2 REQUIRED? YES NO 4.12 COLMAX2> THR4? a--:-;N:..:;;O_ _--..l YES ONLY COlMAX 1 a 4.13 COlMAX 2>TOl2? N '---------~YES VAll 0 ONSET 4.14 N PRESENT? I--....;;O_---"_...... TO STEP 7 YES 5,1 FURTH ER PROCESSING OF VALID TOUCH...--_TO STEP 2 1 4,733,222 CAPACITANCE·VARIATION·SENSITIVE TOUCH SENSING ARRAY SYSTEM RELAnON TO PRIOR APPLICATION 5 This is a continuation-in-part of co-pending application Ser. No. 566,045 fIled on Dec. 27, 1983, now abandoned. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 10 The present invention pertains to improvements in capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array systems. A touch sensing array system may include an array of individual touch responsive areas which may be oper- 15 ated as keys on a keyboard or may include a single relatively large touch responsive area which may be operated for control purposes as a touch pad to provide an indication associated with a given position in the array. In a capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing 20 array system, the touching of a touch responsive area results in a variation of the capacitance between one or more electrodes and circuit ground. This variation results in the variation of a sense signal produced on one or more sense lines coupled to the respective electrodes. 25 In a typical capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array system, each electrode is driven by an alternating current or pulse signal. Sense signals are produced on the respective sense lines coupled to the respective driven electrodes. The sense signals are pro- 30 cessed to determine whether a touch responsive area has been touched by an operator. A typical touch sensing array has three types of conductors: drive lines, sense lines, and electrodes. A drive line is a conductor coupled to a drive signal 35 generator and capacitively coupled to one or more electrodes. Typically an enlarged portion of the drive line constitutes a plate of a drive line-to-electrode capacitor. A sense line is a conductor coupled to a sense signal 40 detector and capacitively coupled to one or more electrodes. Typically an enlarged portion of the sense line constitutes a plate of an electrode-to-sense line capacitor. An electrode is a conductor capacitively coupled to 45 at least one drive line and capacitively coupled to at least one sense line. Typically an electrode has one or more enlarged portions or plates, hereafter called tabs, which furnish a capacitor plate to complete a capactive coupling between the electrode and the body of an 50 operator, and thereby to system ground, when the tab or the area overlying the tab is touched by a fmger of the operator. The electrode part of a drive line-to-electrode capacitor or electrode-to-sense line capacitor may be one or more tabs of the electrode, or may be a con- 55 ductive plate of the electrode not serving as a tab. U.S. Pat. No. 4,145,748 to Eichelberger and Butler is relevant to the present invention. This patent describes a touch sensing array involving drive lines, sense lines, and electrodes. In this system, there is a unique elec- 60 trode at the intersection of each drive line and sense line, and each electrode is associated with only one key. The number of keys is equal to the product of the number of drive lines and the number of sense lines. Under the direction of control logic means, voltage pulses are 65 applied sequentially to the individual drive lines and the resulting signals on the sense lines are individually processed by an AID converter to produce a digital output 2 count uniquely associated with a pair made up of a single drive line and a single sense line and therefore with the unique electrode which lies at the intersection of said single drive line and said single sense line. The digital output associated with each electrode is compared to a "no-touch" digital count unique to that electrode which is stored in a memory and updated periodically by a count of at most one. Each comparison of a digital count associated with a specific electrode to the "no-touch" digital count associated with that electrode, results in an independent determination of the presence or absence of touch of that electrode. In the event of an extended dwell time of operator touch, the "no-touch" digital count becomes incorrect as an indicator of the absence of touch for the key(s) touched. This is because the periodic updates occur regularly, even during the dwell period. This condition may result in "false negatives" wherein the touch array is not responsive to operator touch of affected keys. The condition is corrected after a sufficient number of periodic updates in the absence of operator touch. Other relevant teachings in the prior art are described below. Several touch sensing array systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,233,522 to Grummer and Hendriks. Each of these systems involves one drive line, a plurality of sense lines and a plurality of electrodes. The sense lines are divided into row sense lines and column sense lines and there are a number of keys equal to the product of the number of row sense lines and the number of column sense lines. Each sense line is connected to a unique detection circuit. A common feature of these systems is an array of touch actuated keys. Each key is composed in part of two tabs; each tab is a directly touchable conductive plate. The tabs are arranged on the top side of a substrate in a coordinate grid of rows and columns where each row of tabs is associated with a unique row sense line and each column of tabs is associated with a unique column sense line. Each key has one row tab and one column tab. Actuation of a selected key is brought about by concurrent direct touching of the two tabs of the key. In a first and second embodiment, the tabs of each row and the tabs of each column are electrically connected to form electrodes. This requires crossing over of selected conductor runs connecting the tabs. In the first embodiment, on the bottom surface of the substrate, there is a single drive line which delivers a common drive signal to each of the electrodes; the coupling of the drive line to the electrode is capacitive and is effected by a plurality of expanded conductive plates linked to the drive line and underlying a portion of each of the tabs of each electrode; also on the bottom surface of the substrate are a plurality of sense lines; there is a unique sense line for each row electrode and for each column electrode; each sense line is capacitively coupled to a particular row or column electrode by expanded conductive plates linked to the sense line and underlying the tabs of the electrode. Crossing over of selected conductor runs is required on the bottom surface of the substrate. In the second embodiment, there are no conductors on the bottom side of the substrate and the capacitive couplings of the drive line and of the sense lines to row and column electrodes are carried out using discrete components in an electrical circuit located separate from the touch panel. A third embodiment resembles the second embodiment except that there are two layers of conduc- 3 4,733,222 tive traces on the top side of the supporting substrate and crossing over of conductive runs is not required; these two layers of conductive traces are separated by a thin dielectric mm; the tabs of the columns lie on the top side of this dielectric film and are connected by conduc- 5 tive traces as in embodiments one and two; the tabs of each row are also on the top side of the dielectric film but are not linked to form a single conductor; each tab in a row overlies an expanded portion of a single conductor on the bottom side of the dielectric mm and 10 thereby is strongly capacitively coupled to this single conductor which is coupled to the common drive line and to a unique sense line as in embodiment two. In all three of the embodiments, the detection circuits connected to the sense lines are scanned in a sequential 15 manner to detect touch. Because of the direct touch of the touchable plates, a capacitive coupling to ground on the order of loo pfis brought about by operator touch. Changes of this large magnitude can be detected by very simple means. Apart from the scanning process, 20 each detection circuit operates independently to report a state of touch or no touch for a particular row or column. The logic of key touch reporting is based on the outputs of the independent detection circuits. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,290,052 to Eichelberger et al., a 25 physical layout of a touch sensing array is given. Touch sensing circuitry is fabricated on a double sided printed circuit board adhesively bonded to the bottom surface "Mf an insulative substrate such as glass. Squarish touch :.electrodes are formed on the top side of the printed 30 circuit board and transmitter (drive line) and receiver (sense line) electrode tabs in registration therewith are ·formed on the bottom side of the printed circuit board. Electrical components and interconnection leads are fabricated as an integral part of the conductor patterns 35 on the surfaces of the printed circuit board. The number of keys is equal to the product of the number of drive .Jines and the number of sense lines. In another type of touch sensing array system, the ;;;drive lines and sense lines are combined to form a plu- 40 ';;,rality of drive/sense lines. A touch sensing array of this type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,322 to Harold Barkan et al. In this device, there is a coordinate grid made up of row and column electrodes wherein each electrode is coupled to a unique drive/sense line; there 45 is a key at the intersection of each row and column electrode; and the number of keys is equal to the product of the number of row electrodes and the number of column electrodes. The operator concurrently and directly touches a tab of a row electrode and a tab of a 50 column electrode to activ:ate a key. A further touch sensing array having combined drive/sense lines is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,786 to Ferenc Ledniczki. In this device, there are n pairs of drive/sense lines and 2 to the nth power electrodes; each electrode is capaci- 55 tively coupled to one line in each pair of drive/sense lines; and each electrode is associated with a unique key. Other types of keyboards share with touch sensing array systems the features of drive lines, sense lines, and sense signal processing. In particular, numerous capaci- 60 tance actuated keyboards based on changes in capacitance brought about by mechanical displacement exist in the prior art and are in widespread use. Such keyboards are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,921,166 to Volpe, 4,305,135 to Dahl et al., and 65 4,359,720 to Chai et al. Prior art capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array systems are further described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4 4,290,052 to Eichelberger et ali 4,379,287 to Tyler et ali 4,305,135 to Dahl et ali 4,157,539 to Hunts et al; 3,691,555 to Looschen; 4,321,479 to Ledniczki et ali 4,103,252 to Bobick; and 3,921,167 to Fox, and in Publication No. T904,oo8 by Crouse. Capacitance-variation tabs also are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,492,440 to Cerbone et al and in IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 17, No.1, June 1974, page 166-7, "TouchSensing Circuit", by J. A. Williams. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides an improved capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array system involving no moving parts for which the array may be inexpensively fabricated in a monolithic construction that is easy to maintain. The nature of the basic combination of elements in the system provides the following advantages: (i) Only a small number of connections are needed between passive circuitry capactively coupled to an array of electrodes and active circuitry used to detect touch. (ii) The array of electrodes may be configured so as to result in a touch-actuated keyboard with each of a plurality of touch responsive areas serving as an individual key; or the array of electrodes may be configured so that finger touch position in a single touch responsive area of a touch pad can be sensed and processed for use in control applications. (iii) Relatively few and simple parts are used to construct a large array of many more keys then ordinarily are associated with conventional keyboards. (iv) The touch responsive areas may be legendized by overlays, which may be sheets of computer printout. (v) Even with considerable stray capacitive coupling in the sytem, sense signals produced in a complete scan of the system may be processed as one or more groups to accurately recognize whether variations in the sense signals are the result of a valid touch. (vi) Sense signals produced in the system may be processed in such a manner as to allow portions of the touch sensing array not in use to be covered with nonconducting materials such as papers or books. The capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array system of the present invention includes an array of electrodes with each electrode including one or a connected series of conductive tabs; an array of drive lines capacitively coupled to the electrodes; a drive signal generator for applying drive signals to the drive lines to drive the electrodes coupled thereto; an array of sense lines capacitively coupled to the electrodes to derive sense signals from the electrodes when drive signals are applied to the drive lines; and means coupled to the sense lines for sensing the sense signals on the respective sense lines, with the amplitudes of the respective sense signals being dependent upon whether the capacitance between a driven electrode coupled to the sense line and circuit ground is varied by an operator touching an area overlying a tab of a driven electrode; and a signal processing system coupled to the sensing means for processing the sense signals to provide information associated with touch by an operator. The electrodes are disposed in relation to the drive lines and the sense lines to provide a system in which the number of electrodes exceeds the sum of the number of drive lines and the number of sense lines and in which the number of keys is greater than the number of electrodes. Preferably the sense signals are converted by analog-to-digital 5 4,733,222 conversion to sense signal values for processing by the signal processing system. Preferably, each electrode is capacitively coupled to only one drive line and to only one sense line; each of the drive lines is capacitively coupled to a plurality of 5 electrodes; and each of the sense lines is capacitively coupled to a plurality of electrodes. No given drive line and sense line pair is connected to more than one electrode in common, and the number of electrodes is equal to the product of the number of drive lines and the 10 number of sense lines. Thus the number of electrodes can exceed the sum of the number of drive lines and the number of sense lines. The drive signal generator under the control of a microprocessor associated control logic is adapted for 15 repetitively applying a sequence of drive signals having different predetermined characteristics to the different drive lines to cause differently characterized sense signals to be derived on a sense line coupled to a plurality of different electrodes. 20 The drive signal on each drive line is a periodic occurence of an alternating signal packet that occurs either at a time when all other drive lines have no signal packets or preferably at a time when one other drive line has a synchronously occuring alternating signal packet of 25 opposing polarity. Preferably, at anyone time, signals on the drive lines consist of alternating signal packets simultaneously applied to a single pair of drive lines, with the paired signal packets being synchronous with each other, of 30 approximately the same value, and of opposing polarities to thereby cause the amplitude of the sense signals derived in response to said synchronous pair of drive signal packets to be low in relation to the variation in the amplitude of the sense signals resulting from touch 35 py an operator. This novel opposing polarity feature enables the number of sense signals and related sense signal processing to be reduced by fifty percent. Preferably, balancing of the oppositely polarized paired signal packets is achieved by selective trimming 40 of the drive line-to-electrode capacitors and/or the electrode-to-sense line capacitors or alternatively by the signal processing system controlling the amplitude of one or both of the paired drive signals. The object of this balancing is to make the amplitude of each of the 45 sense signals small in the absence of operator touch. The touch sensing array is amenable to an inexpensive monolithic construction, wherein a first portion of the electrode array is supported by one side of a thin dielectric substrate and a second portion of the elec- 50 trode array is supported by the opposite side of the thin dielectric substrate. In alternative embodiments, the drive lines and sense lines are supported by opposite sides of a second thin dielectric substrate that is separated by a third thin dielectric substrate from the first- 55 mentioned dielectric substrate supporting the electrodes; or the drive lines and sense lines are supported on the same thin dielectric substrate as the electrodes. In the latter embodiment, a drive line or sense line on one side of the substrate is. coupled to a plurality of elec- 60 trodes on the opposite side of the substrate by a capacitor including a first plate supported by the one side of the substrate and extending from the coupled drive line or sense line; and a second oppositely disposed plate supported by the opposite side of the substrate and 65 extending from each coupled electrode. The touch sensing array system of the present invention can be configured for use as a keyboard. In a pre- 6 ferred embodiment the electrodes are arrayed in rows and columns and each key of the keyboard overlies a tab complex comprised of an enlarged portion, a tab, of one row electrode and a tab of one column electrode; and the number of keys is equal to the product of the number of row electrodes and the number of column electrodes. Thus the number of keys can greatly exceed the number of electrodes. The sense signals derived from the row and column electrodes are processed to provide information associated with whichever key is touched by an operator. The touch sensing array system of the present invention also can be configured so that fmger touch position can be sensed. In such embodiments the electrode array is dimensioned and disposed so that an operator firmly touching his fmger to the interior area of a single touch responsive panel overlying and coextensive with the electrode array necessarily varies the capacitance to ground of a plurality of electrodes; and the signal processing system processes the sense signals to provide information associated with the position of touch. The processing system processes the relative magnitudes of variations in the sense signals and performs an interpolation routine using three relative magnitudes to provide an estimate of touch position. In another aspect of the present invention that is applicable in general to capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array systems and not merely to the system of the present invention having arrays of drive lines and sense lines capacitively coupled to arrays of electrodes, sense values in digital form are provided and the processing system processes complete sets of digital sense values iteratively as a group to ascertain the values of variations in the digital sense values and processes the variation values to determine whether said variations resulted from a touch responsive area being touched by an operator. In the processing, operator touch at a specific location is judged to be present when the variation values match a pattern of variation values characteristically associated with touch at that specific location. Such pattern matching constitutes a more powerful and versatile signal processing routine than is found in the prior art and allows the recognition of a valid touch response in capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array systems in which, because of stray capacitive coupling, a significant change may occur in sense signal values not directly associated with electrodes underlying the position of operator touch. Preferably the sense signal values are processed independently in one or more groups. Preferably for each group this processing proceeds in two stages. In a first, feature extraction stage a search is made for features of the group of variations of sense signal values indicative of touch. A second, confirmation stage is carried out when an affmnative determination is made in the first stage. In the confmnation stage, tests are carried out which confmn that a pattern of variation characteristic of touch by an operator is or is not present. In some embodiments, further stages of processing may be needed to more completely characterize the response of the touch sensing array system. In a further aspect of the present invention that likewise. is applicable to capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array systems in general, sense signal values in digital form are provided in accordance with the amplitudes of the respective sense signals and the processing system processes the sense signals iteratively to determine whether a touch responsive area has been 4,733,222 7 8 touched by an operator by comparing the sense signal DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED values with baseline values derived from sense signal EMBODIMENTS values provided when no touch responsive area is Referring the FIG. 1, a preferred embodiment of the touched by an operator; and revises the baseline values in response to sensed variations in the sense signal val- 5 capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array system of the present invention includes a 1024-key touch ues which are stable over a predetermined number of sensing array 10, constructed from thirty-two row eleccomplete scans of the touch sensing array occurring in trodes EI-32 and thirty-two column electrodes E33-64, the absence of valid touch by an operator. This feature a drive line array that includes four row drive lines allows portions of the touch sensing array not in use to be covered with nonconducting materials, such as 10 DLI-4 and four column drive lines DL5-8, an array of eight sense lines SLI-8, an array of sixty-four drive books or papers, without rendering the array inoperaline-to-electrode capacitors DLECI-64, an array of tive. sixty-four electrode-to-sense line capacitors ESLCI-64, Additional features of the present invention are dea multiplexer 11, an amplifier circuit 12, a synchronous scribed in relation to the description of the preferred 15 demodulator 13, an analog-to-digital (AID) converter embodiments. 14, a microprocessor IS, a control logic circuit 16 and a drive signal generator 17. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS While only thirty-two row electrodes and thirty-two FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the system of the present column electrodes are included in this embodiment, it is 20 to be understood that with a number "n" of drive lines invention. FIG. 2 is a partial schematic circuit diagram showing DL and a number "m" of sense lines SL there may be the capacitive interconnection between the drive lines, n Xm electrodes; and if a number "k" of the electrodes electrodes, and sense lines and showing the tabs of the are row electrodes, then there would be (nxm)=k electrodes in one preferred embodiment of the system column electrodes and k[(nxm)-k] keys. In particular, of FIG. 1. 25 with a number n of drive lines and the same number of FIG. 3 is a schematic circuit diagram illustrating the sense lines, there may be n squared electrodes; and with theory of touch detection in the touch sensing array of half, or (n squared)/2, of the electrodes being row electhe system of FIG. 1. trodes and with half being column electrodes, there ,~ FIG. 4 is a schematic exploded cross-sectional diamay be (n to the fourth power)/4 keys. Thus with only -':.gram illustrating the construction of one preferred em- 30 2n connections between active circuitry and the drive .',··bodiment of the touch sensing array of the system of and sense lines in combination, a system of (n to the >:FIG.l. fourth power)/4 keys may be obtained. FIG. 5 is a partial plan view illustrating the construcReferring to FIG. 2, illustrated schematically are tab tion and interconnection of the drive lines, electrodes, complexes TC, each comprised of a tab of one of the and sense lines and the tabs of the electrodes in one 35 row electrodes EI-32 and a tab of one of the column electrodes E33-64. Each of the electrodes EI-64 conpreferred embodiment of the system of FIG. 1. tributes a tab to thirty-two tab complexes TC. The drive FIG. 6 illustrates the timing and polarity of the differlines DI-8 are capacitively coupled to the electrodes .o-ent drive signal patterns applied to the drive lines by the EI-64 by the drive line-to-electrode capacitors DLEC:drive signal generator in one preferred embodiment of ::the system of FIG. 1. 40 1-64. The electrodes EI-64 are capacitively coupled to :c. FIGS. 7 through 12 are flow charts of the program the sense lines SLI-8 by the electrode-to-sense line capacitors ESLCI-64. Each electrode EI-64 is capaciused by the microprocessor to process sense signal valtively coupled to only one drive line DL and to only ues in one preferred embodiment of the system of FIG. one sense line SL. Each of the eight drive lines DLI-8 1. FIG. 13 is a partial plan view illustrating the con- 45 is capacitively coupled to eight of the sixty-four electrodes EI-64; and each of the eight sense lines SLI-8 is struction and relationship of the electrode array and the coupled to eight of the sixty-four electrodes EI-64. In single touch responsive area in an alternative preferred effect each electrode EI-64 completes a T-bridge conembodiment of the system of FIG. 1. nection between a pair made up of a unique one of drive FIG. 14 is a schematic exploded cross-sectional view 50 lines DLI-8 and a unique one of sense lines SLI-8. illustrating the construction of the touch sensing array The theory of touch detection is described with referin the alternative preferred embodiment of FIG. 13. ence to FIG. 3, wherein a tab of an electrode is shown. FIGS. 15A through 15D illustrate the relationship A drive line DL is capacitively coupled to the electrode between layered arrays of electrodes, drive lines, and E by the drive line-to-electrode capacitance DLEC; sense lines in the alternative preferred embodiment of 55 and the electrode E is capacitively coupled to a sense FIGS. 13 and 14. line SL by an electrode-to-sense line capacitance FIG. 16 is a flow chart of microprocessor programESLC. A drive signal is provided on the drive line DL ming applicable to the further preferred embodiment of by a drive signal source V to drive the electrode E. A FIG. 13 that is used in addition to the programming variable capacitance to ground (VCG) is produced in 60 accordance with the proximity to the tab of an operaillustrated by FIGS. 7-12. FIG. 17 illustrates the timing and polarity of the tor's finger F, as shown in the equivalent circuit 18. different drive signal patterns applied to the drive lines There is also a stray capacitance from the electrode E to by the drive signal generator in a further preferred ground as represented by the capacitor SCG. embodiment of the system of FIG. 1. When a drive signal (OS) consisting of an applied AC FIGS. 18 and 19 are flow charts of microprocessor 65 voltage is placed on the drive line DL to drive the programming applicable to the further preferred emelectrode E, a sense signal (SS) is provided on the sense bodiment of FIG. 17 that is used in lieu of the programline SL. The amplitude of the sense signal on the sense ming illustrated in FIGS. 8-12. line SL is dependent upon whether the capacitance 4,733,222 9 W between the driven electrode E and circuit ground is varied by an operator touching the tab. When the operator touches the tab (or even moves his fmger F in close proximity to the tab) the variable capacitance to ground VCG increases to thereby cause the amplitude of the 5 sense signal on the sense line SL to decrease. By providing appropriate means for processing the seJ,1s~ signal provided on the line SL, it is possible to ascertam when the tab has been touched by an operator. A preferred construction of the touch sensing array 10 in this embodiment is shown in FIG. 4. Each tab complex TC includes two conductive tabs 20 and 21 that a~e respectively parts of different ~lectrode~. One ~b 20.ls supported on one side of a thin (0.001 mch) dielectnc Mylar fUm substrate 22 and the other tab 21 is supported 15 on the other side of the thin dielectric substrate 22. Referring to FIG. 5, it is seen that the row electrodes E1-32 (represented by solid lines) are supported on the top side of the substrate 22, and that the column electrodes E33-64 (represented by broken lines) are sup- 20 ported on the bottom side of the substrate 22. Each top-side tab 20 is an enlarged portion of a row electrode; and each corresponding bottom-side tab 21 of the same tab complex is an enlarged portion of a column electrode and is adjacent to the position underlying the 25 top-side tab 20 so that the capacitance between both electrodes having the respective tabs 20 and 21 and ground is varied whe~ the tou~h. sensing array is touched by an operator m the proX1m1ty of the tab com· plex comprising tabs 20 and 2 1 . . 30 Referring again to FIG. 4, t~e dielectnc .substrate 22 is supported by a nonconductive mechamcal; support layer 23, which is covered on its bottom-side by a grounded conductive, electricalltsheilding layer ~. The touch sensing array further mcludes a pr~tectlve 35 0.005 inch L:xan plastic fUm layer 25 covenng the unsuPP?rted Side of the ~ubstrate. 22 and .the. ta~ ~O. The protective fUm layer 25 is backpnnted ~Ith indiCia ~sociated with each of the tab com~lexes m ord~r to identify the tab co~plexes ~ underlymg keys which are ~he 40 touch responsl~e ar:as m a keyb~ard. The dashed line 26 sh?ws the ~trnenslOn of an outl~e of the tab coml?lex that IS backpnnted .on the protective ~lm 25. Optionally, the touch SenSl1:1g ~ay may' al~o. mclude a paper ov.erlay .lay~~ 27 hav~g. dlffe~ent indiCia than the back- 45 pnnted indiCia when It IS deSired to use the touch sens~g. ~rray in an applic~tion in which the backprinted mdicla are. not appropnate. . FIG. 4 Illustrates the r:latlve placement of the ~onstituents of the touch sensing array only; and the thick- 50 nesses of the l~yers 22, 23, 24, 25, ~nd 27 are not pro~ortionate.. In this pref~rred ~mbod~ent th~ mecham~al suppo~mg layer 23 IS 0.2~ Inch thi~k. It will be ~eadily appreciated that de~rea;smg the thickness. this supporting layer 23 will Increase the proX1m1ty of the 55 grounde~ shield~g layer 24 to each o.f electrodes E1-64 thereby mcreaslng the stray c~pacltances t~ ground SCG of each of E1-;64: The entire. touch sens~g array 10 is p~ o~ a monolithic construc~lOn that also Includes the dnve lme-to-electrode capacitors DLEC1-64 and 60 the electrode-to-sense line capacitors ESLC1-64. The width of each of the respective electrodes E1-64 is very narrow (0.02 inch) in areas where a row electrode E1-32 on one side of the substrate 22 crosses the position of a column electrode E33-64 on the opposite 65 side of the substrate 22 in order to minimize capacitive coupling between electrodes on opposite sides of the substrate 22. or Referring again to FIG. 5, both the drive lines DL1-8 and the sense lines SL1-8 are supported by the same thin dielectric substrate 22 as supports the electrodes E1-64 and the tab complexes TC. The row drive lines DL1-4 (represented by broken lines) are supported on the bottom side of the substrate 22; and the column drive lines DL5-8 (represented by solid lines) are supported on the top side of the substrate 22. Each of drive lines DL1-8 on one side of the substrate 22 is coupled to electrodes on the opposite side of the substrate 22 by the drive line-to-electrode capacitors DLECl-64. Each capacitor includes a fIrst plate supported by one side of the substrate 22 and extending from the drive line and a second oppositely disposed plate supported by the other side of the substrate 22 and extending from the coupled electrode. For example, consider drive line-to-electrode capacitor DLEC40 which includes a fIrst plate 29 supported on the top side of the substrate 22 and extending from column drive line DL8 on the top side of the substrate 22 and a second oppositely disposed plate 30 supported on the bottom side of the substrate 22 and extending from column electrode E40 on the bottom side of the substrate 22. The sense lines SL1-8 are supported on both sides of the substrate 22, as may be discerned from the representative respective solid and broken lines in FIG. 5. The row electrodes E1-32 on the top side of the substrate 22 are capacitively coupled to the portions of eight sense lines SL1-8 on the bottom side of the substrate 22 respectively by thirty-two of the electrode-to-sense line capacitors, ESLC1-32. Each of the eight sense lines is capacitively coupled to four of the row electrodes. The column electrodes E33-64 of the bottom side of the substrate 22 are capacitively coupled to the portions of the eight sense lines SL1-8 on the top side of the substrate 22 respectively by the remaining thirty-two electrode-to-sense line capacitors, ESLC33-64. Each. such capacitor includes a fIrst plate supported by one Side of the substrate 22 and extending from the electrode and a second plate supported by the other side of the substrate 22 and extending from the coupled sense line, such as shown for capacitors ESLC1-4. This condition is ~so satisfIed by capacitors ESLC37-40 wherein a capacitor plate on one side of the substrate constitutes the first plate for several different capacitors that are defIned by separate second plates on the opposite side of the substrate. In capacitors ESLC37-40, a first plate 34 S?Pported on the top side of the substrate 22 and extendmg from the sense line SL2 supported on the top side of the substrate 22 is in common to each of these capacitors ESLC37-40, and separate second plates 37, 38, 39 and 40 are supported on the bottom side of the substrate 22 and respectively extend from the electrodes E37, E38, E39, and E40 supported on the bottom side of the sub22 str~~ble '1 shows which one of the drive lines DL1-8 and which one of the sense lines SL1-8 are respectively coupled to each of the electrodes E1-64. No given drive line and sense line pair is connected to more than 1 d' one e ectro e In common. TABLE I ROW DRIVE LINES DLi DL2 DL3 DL4 Electrode Number SLi SL2 SLJ SL4 SL5 SL6 I 5 9 13 17 21 2 6 10 14 18 22 3 7 II 15 19 23 4 8 12 16 20 24 SL7 SL8 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 4,733,222 11 TABLE 2-continued TABLE I-continued Electrode Number SLI SL2 SL3 SL4 SL5 SL6 COLUMN DRIVE LINES DL5 DL6 DL7 DL8 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43. 44 45 46 47 48 12 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 DSPI SL7 SLS 57 58 59 61 5 62 63 60 64 DSP2 DSP3 DSP4 Location of DS and IDS on DLl-8 during DSPI-4 During each drive signal pattern, the paired drive signal DS and inverted drive signal IDS occur simultaneously and are synchronous with each other, of apReferring again to FIG. 1, drive signals are applied to 10 proximately the same value, and of opposing polarities. the drive lines DLI-8 by the drive signal generator 17. The drive signal pattern information on lines 42 indiThe drive signal generator 17 is adapted to respond to cates the sequence in which the drive signal packets are drive signal timing information provided on line 41 placed upon given drive lines. Each of the drive lines from the control logic circuit 16 and to drive signal 15 DSI-8 is dedicated to receiving either drive signal DS pattern information provided on lines 42 from the mior inverted drive signal IDS exclusively, as shown in croprocessor 15 by repetitively applying a sequence of FIG. 6. drive signals having different predetermined characterReferring again to FIG. 1, the multiplexer 11 timeistics to the different drive lines DLI-8 to cause differdivision multiplexes the eight different sense signals on ently characterized sense signals to be derived on sense 20 sense lines SLI-8 to provide time-division multiplexed lines SLI-8 coupled to a plurality of different elecsense signals on line 43 to the amplifier 12. The amplifier trodes EI-64. The drive signal on each drive line is a 12 is a band pass amplifier centered at the predeterperiodic occurence of an alternating signal packet that mined frequency of the alternating signal within the occurs at a time when one other drive line has a syn- 25 signal packets of the drive signals. The synchronous chronously occuring alternating signal packet of opposdemodulator frequency demodulates the signal on line ing polarity. Referring to FIG. 6, each signal packet 44 from the amplifier 12. The control logic circuit 16 contains sixteen cycles of an alternating signal that varcontrols the operation of the synchronous demodulator ies at a predetermined frequency. At anyone time, the 13 by a signal on lines 45 to cause the demodulation of signals on the drive lines consist of alternating signal 30 a signal packet on line 44 to be synchronous with the generation of the corresponding drive signal packet by packets simultaneously applied to a signal pair of drive lines, with the paired signal packets being synchronous the drive signal generator 17. The demodulated signals then are converted from analog signals to digital signals with each other, of approximately the same value, and of opposing polarities to thereby cause the amplitude of 35 by the AID converter 14 which provides a respective sense signal value (SSV) on lines 46 for the sense signal the sense signals derived in response to such synchroderived from one of the sense lines SLI-8 that is senous pairs of drive signal packets to be low in relation to lected by the multiplexer 11 during one of drive patthe variation in the amplitude of such sense signals reterns DSPI-4 (FIG. 6). The multiplexing rate is such sulting from the keys being touched by an operator. Further means of providing that each of the sense sig- 40 that a sense signal from only one of the sense lines SLI-8 is provided on line 43 and subsequently demodunals is of small amplitude in the absence of operator lated during each occurrence of a drive signal pattern touch are described in conjunction with Table 3 and DSP. The sense signal values indicate both the amplithereafter in conjunction with Table 6. Each of the drive signal packets of one polarity is 45 tude and the polarity of the sense signals. Because opposing polarity drive signal patterns are provided, the referred to as drive signal DS; and each of the drive number of sense signal values that must be processed to signal packets of the opposite polarity is referred to as scan completely the touch sensing array is one-half the inverted drive signal IDS. In the context of this Specifinumber of electrodes. Thus, for this embodiment, only cation when no distinction is made between the drive signal DS and the inverted drive signal IDS, the term 50 thirty-two sense signal values need be processed during each complete scan of the touch sensing array. In this drive signal refers to whichever type of drive signal embodiment, the AID converter 14 is an 8-bit AID pattern (DS or IDS) is applied. converter yielding a number between 0 and 255. The Referring again to FIG. 6, the drive signals are prosynchronous demodulator 13 is biased. so that a midvided on the drive lines DLI-8 by the drive signal range sense signal value of 128 is obtained when no generator 17 in a repeating sequence of four different 55 drive signals are applied to the drive lines, and consedrive signal patterns DSPl, DSP2, DSP3, and DSP4. quently no drive signals are transmitted to the sense During DSPl, a drive signal DS is provided on drive lines, during a period of AID conversion. line DLI and an inverted drive signal IDS is provided on drive line DL3. Table 2 shows the pair of drive lines 60 Table 3 shows a processing sequence identification number for each of the sense signal values SSVI-32 and from DSI-8 receiving respectively the drive signal DS the sign, under an appropriate choice of polarity for DS and the inverted drive signal IDS during each of the and IDS, of the variation in the sense signal value defour different drive signal patterns DSPI-4. rived from each of the sense lines SLI-8 during each of _ _ _ _ _ _ _.....:T;,,;A..;:,B;;;,L;;;;,;:;E:.,;2;;..65 the respective drive signal patterns DSPI-4 whenever a DSPI DSP2 DSP3 DSP4 key is touched by an operator with respect to the electrodes EI-64 that supply the tabs of the tab complex of LINE RECEIVING DS DLi DL2 DL5 DL6 LINE RECEIVING IDS DL3 OL4 DL7 DL8 the key. 4,733,222 13 14 TABLE 3 COLUMN ROW DSPI SSV SIGN SLi I + SL2 2 + + SL3 4 + SL5 5 + SL6 6 + SL7 7 + SL8 8 + SL4 E DSP2 SSV SIGN I 9 3 5 10 7 9 It 11 13 12 15 17 13 19 21 14 23 25 15 27 . 29 16 31 + + + + + + + + E DSP3 SSV SIGN 2 4 6 8 17 + 18 + 10 19 + 20 + 21 + 22 + 23 + 24 + 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 E SSV DSP4 SIGN 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 25 + 26 + 27 + 28 29 + + 30 + 31 + 32 + For example, if the tab complex with a tab from row 20 electrode El and a tab from column electrode E48 is touched by an operator, a positive variation in the sense signal value is derived from sense line SLI during DSPI and a negative variation in the sense signal value is derived from sense line SL4 during DSP4 provided that 25 the polarity of drive signal DS is such that a decrease in the amount of the drive signal DS appearing on the appropriate sense line during a drive signal pattern results in a positive variation in the sense signal value. During manufacture of the touch sensing array sys- 30 tem, Table 3 can be referred to in trimming drive lineto-electrode capacitors and/or electrode-to-sense line capacitors. The object of this trimming step is to balance the transmitted drive signal DS and inverted drive signal IDS appearing on each sense line during each one 35 of DSPI-4. In this embodiment, a sense signal value of 128 is indicative of perfect balancing of DS and IDS on a sense line during a drive signal pattern. As an example, if SSV15 is found to be 151 in the absence of operator touch, trimming either the drive line-to-electrode ca- 40 pacitor DLEC28 or the electrode-to-sense line capacitor ESLC28 is seen, on consulting Table 3, to make the value of SSV15 smaller. Balancing of the entire touch sensing array system of this embodiment proceeds by iterating a trimming procedure in which, for each k 45 between 1 and 32, the difference between SSVk and 128, if exceeding in magnitude a predefmed tolerance value, is reduced by half by trimming the appropriate DLEC and/or ESLC on consulting Table 3. Thus, the trimming is terminated when each ofSSVI-32 is within 50 the predefmed tolerance of the target value 128 in the absence of operator touch. An iterative method of trimming is preferred since, in the presence of stray capacitive coupling, the trimming ofDLEC and/or ESLC of a particular electrode may produce changes in sense 55 signal values not associated with that electrode. During manufacture, this trimming operation is carried out when the assembly of the touch sensing array system is sufficiently advanced so that the relations of the arrays of conductors of the system to the protective layer 25, 60 the mechanical support 23, and the shielding layer 24 of FIG. 4 are fixed. An alternative method of attaining the desired balance of DS and IDS on each of the sense lines SLI-8 during each of DSPI-4 is discussed below beginning 65 with the paragraph preceding Table 6. The microprocessor 15 processes the sense signal value on lines 46 to provide information on lines 47 E 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 associated with any particular key that is touched by an operator. In this embodiment the touch sensing array 10 is used as a keyboard for a data processor 48. Accordingly, the information provided by the microprocessor on lines 47 constitutes a keyboard output signal to the data processor 48. The operation of the multiplexer 11 is controlled by signals provided on lines 49 by the microprocessor 15. The microprocessor also produces an initialization signal on line 50 to the control logic circuit 16, which coordinates the operation of the synchronous demodulator 13, the AID converter 14, and the drive signal generator 17. The operation of the microprocessor 15 is reset by the data processor 48 by a signal on line 51. The microprocessor 15 is programmed to process the sense signal values (SSV) on lines 46 iteratively to ascertain the signs and values of the variations (SSVV) in the sense signal values (SSV) and to process the sense signal variation values (SSVV) as a group to determine whether the variations resulted from a key being touched by an operator. The flow charts for this program are shown in FIGS. 7 through 12. The sense signal values are processed iteratively by comparing the sense signal values with baseline values derived from sense signal values provided when the touch sensing array is untouched by an operator to determine which one of three states is present. The first of the three states is an UNTOUCHED state. The second of the three states is a VALID TOUCH state in which a valid touch by an operator is present. The third of the three states is an INVALID RESPONSE state which occurs when neither the first state or the second state is present. Referring to FIG. 7, step 0 represents a power on, reset operation; and in step 1, the variable values are initialized. In step 2, a scan of the toueh sensing array 10 is carried out with the production of sense signal values SSVI-32 as program input. Initial processing is carried out. In step 3, a test is performed to determine if the sense signal variation· values SSVVI-32 are all small. If so, the program branches to step 6 where the UNTOUCHED state is processed. If any of SSVVI-32 is found not to be small in step 3, the program branches to step 4 where a test is performed to identify the presence or absence of the VALID TOUCH state. The VALID TOUCH state is processed in step 5. In the absence of the VALID TOUCH state the program branches from step 4 to step 7 where an INVALID RESPONSE is 15 4,733,222 processed. Following each of steps 5, 6, or 7 there is a return to step 2. Expansions of steps 1 through 7 of FIG. 7 are shown in FIGS. 8 through 12, with a step numbering system 5 which agrees in the fIrst digit with that of FIG. 7. Referring to FIG. 8, the initialization is shown in steps 1.1 and 1.2 to consist of inputting the sense signal values SSVl-32 and storing these values as baseline values BVl-32 and also as reserve values RVl-32. Next, a baseline drift compensation count (BDCC) and 10 a baseline revision count (BRC) are each initialized to zero. In step 1.2 and in later steps, the "assign" symbol :=is used in the usual way to indicate that the value to the right of said symbol is assigned to the variable to the left of said symbol. It is intended in operation that base- 15 line values represent the sense signal values that would be obtained in the absence of operator touch and thus that the touch sensing array 10 should be untouched during initialization. Referring to FIG. 9, the microprocessor 15 is pro- 20 grammed to process SSVl-32 to determine whether any of the keys has been touched by an operator by comparing SSVl-32 with the respective BVl-32 derived from the corresponding SSVl-32 provided when the., keys are untouched by an operator to determine 25 whether any of the sense signal variation values SSVVl-32 derived from such comparison exceeds a predetermined variation value bound (VVB); and to ,.:',revise BVl-32 in response to sensed variations in ,SSVl-32 over a predetermined number of iterations 30 ,".c, (each iteration corresponds to a sequence in which each of drive signal patterns DSPl-4 is repeated for each of :, the sense lines SLl-8) occurring in the absence of valid touch by an operator. The baseline values are revised in response to sensed variations in the sense signal values 35 which are stable over a predetermined number of iterations and which indicate the INVALID RESPONSE state of the touch sensing array 10. In the course of revising the baseline values BVl-32, :.::the microprocessor 15 (a) stores a set of reverse values 40 5. RVl-32 derived from a set including each ofthe respec..;;tive sense signal values SSVl-32; (b) compares each sense signal value to each corresponding reserve value; (c) revises the stored set of RVl-32 to correspond to a current set of SSVl-32 whenever the difference be· 45 tween anyone of the sense signal values and the corresponding one of the reserve values exceeds a predetermined reserve value bound (RVB); (d) processes sense signal variation values SSVVl-32 derived from a current set of SSVl-32 whenever anyone of SSVVl-32 50 derived from such set exceeds VVB to determine whether VVB was exceeded as a result of a key being touched by an operator; (e) increments the baseline revision count BRC in response to each current set of SSVl-32 for which it is determined that the exceeding 55 of VVB was not the result of a key being touched by an operator; (t) resets BRC to zero each time the stored set of RVl-32 is revised; and (g) revises BVl-32 to correspond to RVl-32 when BRC equals a predetermined baseline revision count limit (BRCL). Step (d) is shown 60 in the flow chart of FIG. 10 and steps (e) and (g) are shown in the flow chart of FIG. 12. Accordingly, it is seen that the baseline values are revised to correspond to the reserve values when the INVALID RESPONSE state is present for a predetermined number of iterations 65 during which time no revision of the reserve values occurs, no revision of baseline values to correspond to reserve values occurs, and the VALID TOUCH state is 16 not present. It is also seen that the baseline values are updated by either incrementing or decrementing each of the respective baseline values in accordance with whether the baseline value is less or greater than the respective last-provided sense signal value when the UNTOUCHED state is present for a predetermined number of consecutive iterations during which time no updating of the baseline values occurs. Sense signal values SSVl-32 are input in step 2.1. Next, in step 2.2 a test is done on the baseline revision count BRC. At certain preselected and fIxed values of BRC there is a branch to step 2.4 where each of the reserve values RVl-32 is altered as shown so as to become closer by one if possible to the respective value of SSVl-32. The SIGN function is employed in this step and in later steps in the usual way where the SIGN of a positive number is plus one, the SIGN of zero is zero, and the SIGN of a negative number is minus one. This operation of step 2.4 is called reserve value drift compensation. Part of the signifIcance of the operation of step 2.4 is shown by the test in step 2.3 where if any of RVl-32 is found to depart by more than the reserve· value bound RVB from the corresponding value among SSVl-32 there is a branch to step 2.5 where all of RVl-32 are given the respective values of the current SSVl-32 and where BRC is reset to zero. In step 2.6 the sense signal variation values SSVVl-32 are calculated as the respective differences of SSVl-32 and BVl-32. In step 3.1, if the magnitude of each of SSVVl-32 is found to be smaller than the variation value bond VVB, the touch sensing array 10 is judged to be in the UNTOUCHED state and there is a branch to step 6. Otherwise there is a branch to step 4. Referring next to FIG. 10, in the course of processing SSVVl-32 the microprocessor 15 (a) in a feature ex· traction stage determines whether the maximum of the group of variation values derived from the row electrodes El-32 (ROWMAX) exceeds a predetermined threshold value (THR); (b) in a confIrmation stage determines whether none of the other variation values derived from El-32 exceeds a tolerance value (TOL) that is a predetermined fraction of ROWMAX; (c) in a feature extraction stage determines whether the maximum of the group of variation values derived from the column electrodes E33-64 (COLMAX) exceeds THR; and (d) in a confIrmation stage determines whether none of the other variation values derived from E33-64 exceeds a tolerance vlaue TOL that is a predetermined fraction of COLMAX. All of the four immediately preceding recited determinations (a), (b), (c) and (d) being affIrmative indicates that the maximum variation value ROWMAX derived from the row electrodes and the maximum variation value COLMAX derived from the column electrodes each resulted from only a single one of the keys being touched instantaneously by an operator. Tests for a valid touch response are carried out in steps 4.1 through 4.6. The variable ROWMAX is always assigned the value of the largest magnitude of the current set of sense signal variation values SSVVl-16 derived from the row electrodes El-32. In step 4.1 ROWMAX is compared to the predetermined thresh· old value THR. If ROWMAX exceeds THR there is a branch to step 4.2 where the tolerance value TOL is set to some fIxed fraction of the value of ROWMAX. Next, in step 4.3 each of the magnitudes of SSVVl-16 other than the one chosen as ROWMAX is compared to TOL. If none of these values exceeds TOL then a 17 4,733,222 VALID ROW TOUCH response is judged to be present and the program branches to step 4.4 where the largest magnitude COLMAX of the current set of sense signal value variations SSVV17-32 derived from the column electrodes E33-64 is determined. COLMAX is 5 compared to THR. If COLMAX exceeds THR, then TOL is recalculated as a fIxed fraction of COLMAX in step 4.5; and in step 4.6, each of the magnitudes of SSVV17-32 other than the one chosen as COLMAX is compared to TOL. If none of these values exceeds 10 TOL, the tests for a VALID TOUCH have been passed and there is an exit to steps 5.1 and 5.2 where a VALID TOUCH is processed. Failing any of the tests of steps 4.1, 4.3, 4.4, or 4.6 causes a branch to step 7 where an INVALID RESPONSE is processed. In step 5.1 which 15 begins the processing of a valid touch, the counts BDCC and BRC are each reset to zero. The signifIcance of these resets will be appreciated when the program flow charts shown in FIGS. 11 and 12 are described. In step 5.2 further processing of a VALID 20 TOUCH response is carried out including the appropriate encoding of the touched key by row number and by column number which numbers may be calculated using the information in Table 3. It is to be understood that the separate processing of 25 sense signal variation values SSVVl-16 derived from row electrodes and of sense signal variation values SSVV17-32 derived from column electrodes as described in conjunction with FIG. 10 is appropriate to the present embodiment with drive signal patterns 30 DSPl-4ofTable 2 and with the geometric layout of the conducting arrays SLl-8, DLl-8, and El-64 of FIG. 5 where none of DLl-8 is a drive line for both a row electrode and a column electrode. In other embodiments, the patterns of variation values characteristically 35 associated with touch may differ and in particular may not allow separate processing of the row and column sense signal values. Referring to FIG. 11, the microprocessor 15·is further programmed to compensate for drift in the sense 40 signal values SSVl-32 that are provided when the touch sensing array is in the untouched state. To effect such compensation, the microprocessor 15 (a) increments the baseline drift compensation count BDCC in response to each current set of sense signal values 45 SSVl-32 in which none of the sense signal variation values SSVVl-32 exceeds the variation value bound VVB; (b) revises the baseline values BVl-32 when the baseline drift compensation count BDCC equals or exceeds a predetermined baseline drift compensation 50 count limit (BDCCL) by adding to BVk the SIGN of the SSVk for each k between 1 and 32; and (c) resets the baseline drift compensation count BDCC to zero upon the baseline values being revised. The processing of the UNTOUCHED state is shown 55 in steps 6.1 through 6.4. In step 6.1 BDCC is incremented by two counts. Next, in step 6.2, BDCC is compared to the predetermined BDCCL. If BDCC has reached or exceeded BDCCL, there is a branch to step 6.3 where BDCC is reset to zero. Next, in step 6.4 each 60 of BVl-32 is altered as shown so as to become closer by one if possible to the respective value of the current SSVl-32. Referring to FIG. 12, the process of compensating for baseline value drift further includes decrementing the 65 baseline drift compensation count BDCC to not less than zero in response to each current set of sense signal values SSVl-32 for which at least one of the variation 18 values SSVVl-32 exceeds the predetermined variation value bound VVB except when it is determined that the exceeding of VVB was the result of a key being touched by an operator. When the INVALID RESPONSE state occurs only intermittently, the updating of the baseline· values is delayed by degree. In step 7.1 the baseline revision count BRC is incremented. Next, BDCC is decremented if BDCC is greater than zero. Next, in step 7.2 BRC is compared to the predetermined baseline revision count limit BRCL. If there is equality there is a branch to step 7.4 where the baseline values BVl-32 are assigned the respective reserve values RVl-32, as discussed above in relation to the description of the program flow chart shown in FIG. 9. Further processing of the INVALID RESPONSE state is carried out in step 7.3 as needed. Referring again to the program flow chart of FIG. 7, it is seen that baseline value drift compensation occurs in step 6, where the UNTOUCHED state is processed, when BDCC reaches BDCCL. BDCC is reset to zero in step 5, incremented by two in step 6, and is decremented by one if positive in step 7. Since there is passage through only one of steps 5, 6, or 7 during each iteration, the condition which brings about baseline value drift compensation is apparent. Also it is seen that complete baseline revision with the resulting replacement of BVl-32 by RVl-32 occurs in step 7, where the INVALID RESPONSE state is processed, when BRC reaches BRCL. BRC is incremented in step 7, is reset to zero in step 5, and is possibly reset to zero in step 2. Thus the conditions needed for complete baseline value revision are apparent: first, sufficient stability of SSVl-32 so that the resetting ofBRC is avoided in step 2, and second, passage through step 7 BRCL times before passing through step 5. Further processing of VALID TOUCH or INVALID RESPONSE beyond that indicated in the flow charts of FIGS. 7-12 may proceed according to wellestablished techniques in keyboard scanner design. All numbers are stored in the microprocessor 15 as 8-bit binary numbers and the sense signal variation values SSVVl-32 are encoded as signed binary numbers lying between decimal minus 128 and decimal 127. It is assumed that, in normal use, changes in each of SSVl-32 will not exceed decimal 127 in magnitude and thus that the sign of such changes will be given a correct interpretation in the microprocessor program. As an example of program parameter choices, suppose that sense signal variation values of over 16 units are reliably produced by operator touch under typical operating conditions. THR may be set equal to 8. RVB and VVB may be set equal to 4. BDCCL may be chosen so that baseline value drift compensation occurs at the rate of one per second when all SSVl-32 are consistently less than or equal to VVB in magnitude. In the process of FIG. 10 in step 4.2 TOL may be assigned the value of ROWMAX/4 and in step 4.5 TOL may be assigned the value of COLMAX/4. BRCL may be chosen so that a complete baseline value revision occurs after two seconds of stabilized SSVs in the INVALID RESPONSE state. The preselected values of BRC which lead to a branch to reserve value drift compensation from step 2.2 in the process of FIG. 9 may be chosen as 1, 2, 4, 8, ••• up to BRCL. In an alternative preferred embodiment, the touch sensing array 10 is adapted so that instead of the e1ectrades serving to form keys of a keyboard, an array of electrodes is dimensioned and disposed so that an opera- 19 4,733,222 tor fmnly touching the interior area of a touch responsive panel overlying and coextensive with the electrode array with his finger necessarily varies the capacitance to ground of a plurality of electrodes simultaneously. In this alternative embodiment the microprocessor 15 is 5 programmed to response so as to provide an output indication of the coordinate position on the touch sensing arry 10 that is touched by the operator. The indication of the position of fmger touch may be used in a variety of control situations, such as, for example, se- 10 lecting the cursor position on a cathode ray tube constituting the display portion of a computer terminal. In other applications, transparent conductive material may be used for the electrodes and the touch sensing array 15 may overlay the cathode tube. The touch sensing array of this alternative embodiment is shown in FIG. 13, where it is seen that there are row electrodes E1, ... supported on one side of a thin dielectric substrate, and column electrodes E33, . . . supported on the opposite side of said substrate. Each 20 electrode consists of a connected series of conductive tabs 53. The center line-to-center line distance D between the row electrodes E1, . . . is 0.25 inch. The column electrodes E33, . . . are separated by the same distance. The conductive tabs are square in shape and 25 are connected by conductive paths which traverse the tabs diagonally. Each square has a diagonal dimension of 0.2 inch. The tabs on one side of the substrate do not ,;:underlie the tabs on the opposite side of the substrate. ':~Instead, as shown in FIG. 13, the tabs on one side of the 30 " substrate are disposed symmetrically between the positions of the tabs on the opposite side of the substrate. The touch sensing array of this alternative embodi'ment has the same basic monolithic construction as described above for the touch sensing array shown in 35 ,FIG. 4. The touch responsive panel is the protective "·film 25, which ordinarily would be backprinted with ," indicia to show a coordinate grid. The use of the optional overlay 27 would be appropriate with this emcohodiment when it is desired to specify portions of the 40 ,;"array as having particular significance. As in the first "described preferred embodiment the entire touch sensing array 10 in this alternative preferred embodiment is a part of a monolithic construction that also includes the drive line-to-electrode capacitors DLECl-64 and the 45 electrode-to-sense line capacitors ESLCl-64 as described above with reference to FIG. 5. An alternative monolithic construction of the touch sensing array of FIG. 13 in combination with the drive line-to-electrode capacitors DLECl-64 and electrode- 50 to-sense line capacitors ESLCl-64 is shown in FIGS. 14 and 15. Referring to FIG. 14, a row electrode 54 of the array of row electrodes El-32 is supported by the top side of a first thin dielectric Mylar mm substrate 55; and a column electrode 56 of the array of column elec- 55 trodes E33-64 is supported by the bottom side of the first substrate 55. The drive lines and sense lines are supported by opposite sides of a second thin dielectric Mylar film substrate 57. In the representative cross-sectional view of FIG. 14, a line 5S of either the array of 60 row drive lines DLl-4 or the array of sense lines SL1-S is supported by the top side of the second substrate 57; and a line 59 of either the array of column drive lines DL5-S or the array of sense lines SL1-S is supported by the bottom side of the second substrate 57. A third thin 65 dielectric Mylar film substrate 60 separates the first substrate 55 and the second substrate 57. Each of these three substrates is approximately 0.001 inch ~hkk. 20 FIGS. 15A, 15B, 15C and 15D show the respective layers of the arrays containing the lines 54, 56, 58 and 59 shown in FIG. 14. The registration marks in these figures indicate the alignment of the respective layers. The top layer, shown in FIG. 15A, contains the array of row electrodes El-32. The next layer, shown in FIG. 15B, contains the array of column electrodes E33-64. The following layer, shown in FIG. 15C, contains the array of row drive lines DLl-4 and portions of the array of sense lines SL1-S. The bottom layer, shown in FIG. lSD, contains the array of column drive lines DL5-S and portions of the array of sense lines SLl-8. When these fpur layers are aligned as indicated by their registration marks, each of the row electrodes El-32 is capacitively coupled primarily to one of the row drive lines DLl-4 and to one of the sense lines SL1-S; and each of the column electrodes E33-64 is capacitively coupled primarily to one of the column drive lines DL5-S and to one of the sense lines SL1-S.1t is obvious that the alternative construction methods illustrated in FIGS. 14 and 15 are equally applicable to embodiments, such as that shown in FIG. 5, in which the touch sensing array is configured as a keyboard. Referring again to FIG. 14, the second substrate 57 is supported by a nonconductive mechanical support layer 61, which is covered on its bottom side by a grounded conductive, electrically shielding layer 62. The touch sensing array further includes a protective 0.005 inch Lexan plastic film layer 63 covering the top unsupported side of the first substrate 55. Optionally the touch sensing array may also include a paper overlay layer 64 having various indicia and/or patterns thereon to particularly indicate specific portions of the array. Referring again to FIG. 10, the microprocessor program for this alternative embodiment necessarily is modified in steps 4.3 and 4.6, to accommodate the fact that more than one of the row electrodes El-32 and more than one of the column electrodes E33-64 are affected during a valid touch. The program can be modified to exempt from the tolerance test the sense signal variation values derived from the two electrodes on either side of the respective electrodes from which ROWMAX and COLMAX are derived. The principle modification of the microprocessor program is to add a stage of processing beyond that of feature extraction and confirmation for valid touch. This modification is described with reference to FIG. 16 which illustrates a flow chart for an interpolation process for calculating an x coordinate and a y coordinate for fmger touch position. In this process it is convenient to redesignate ach of the sense signal value variations SSVVl-32 as a positive part minus a negative part; where the positive part of a nonnegative number is the number itself, and the negative part of a nonpositive number is the absolute value of the number. In this way 64 variables called electrode referred variation values ERVVl-64 are obtained from the 32 sense signal variation values SSVVl-32.The two of ERVVl-64 associated with each ofSSVVl-32 are obtained by consulting Table 3 with the obvious interpretation in the present context. For example: the positive and negative parts of SSVV21 are assigned to ERVV49 and ERVV51 respectively upon consulting Table 3; a value of minus twelve for SSVV21 would yield zero for ERVV49 and twelve for ERVV51; a value of fifteen for SSVV21 would yield fifteen for ERVV49 and zero for ERVV51. Referring to FIG. 16, the interpolation routine for estimating the y coordinate of operator finger touch 21 4,733,222 position from ERVVl-32 is set forth in steps 5.2.1 through 5.2.3, and the interpolation process for estimating the x coordinate of operator touch position from ERVV33-64 is set forth in steps 5.2.4 through 5.2.6. These steps are to be considered as an expansion in this preferred embodiment of step 5.2 of the process covered by the flow chart of FIG. 10 for the first described preferred embodiment. These interpolation processes produce x and y coordinates which indicate the position of operator fmger touch. Each coordinate is a number between I and 125. In step 5.2.1 the variable k is assigned the number of the maximum of ERVVl-32; the variable j is assigned the value of k-I; and the variable m is assigned the value of k + 1. For convenience, in step 5.2.2 a variable called ERVVO is assigned the value zero and ERVV33 is temporarily assigned the value zero. Next, variables PREMAX, MAX, and POSTMAX are assigned the respective values ERVVj, ERVVk, and ERVVm. Following this, the value of ERVV33 is restored to the value of the positive part of SSVV17. Next, in step 5.2.3 the variable Y-COORDINATE which gives a ycoordinate for fmger touch position is calculated from the elementary interpolation formula: Y=4[k+{(POSTMAX-PREMAX)/(MAX+ IPOSTMAX -PREMAX I){]-3 22 referring to FIG. 5, wherein each tab complex includes conductive tabs 20 and 21 respectively of a row electrode El-32 and a column electrode E33-64. This encoding principle clearly could be extended so that the 5 electrodes could be divided into three or more groups and that fmger contact with a touch responsive area overlying a tab complex would result in an increase in the variable capacitance to ground of an electrode from each of the three or more groups. 10 Yet another change that can be made in the foregoing described preferred embodiments can be appreciated by referring to FIG. 4, wherein a cross-sectional view of the touch sensing array is shown. It is apparent that, in areas not supporting the tabs 20 and 21, the thin fIlm 15 substrate 22 need not remain close to the surface of the 20 25 (Eq. I) Y is rounded to the nearest integer. It is evident that the term POSTMAX-PREMAX appearing in the interpolation formula is never greater than MAX and thus that 30 the term (pOSTMAX-PREMAX)/(MAX+ IPOSTMAX - PREMAX I) which is added to k always lies between minus one half and plus one half. Next in steps 5.2.4 through 5.2.6 the interpolation routine of steps 5.2.1 through 5.2.3 is repeated with obvious modiflca- 35 tions to calculate the variable X-COORDINATE. In steps 5.2.7 additional processing of VALID TOUCH by methods well known to those versed in the art are indicated. A further modification of the microprocessor pro- 40 gram for this alternative embodiment is to exempt from the tolerance test of the confrrmation steps 4.3 and 4.6, described in relation to the flow chart of FIG. 10, the electrode referred variation values derived from the two adjacent electrodes on each side of the electrode 45 associated with the maximum ERVV. In this alternative embodiment the ERVVs correspond to the SSVVs in FIG.10. The remaining features of the embodiment of FIG. 1 are likewise applicable to this alternative preferred em- 50 bodiment. There are several changes that can be made in the foregoing described preferred embodiments within the scope of the present invention. For example, in the embodiment of FIG. 2, there are eight drive lines 55 DLl-8 and eight sense lines SLl-8 capacitively coupled in the designated manner to the electrodes El-64. It is apparent that by suitable analog switching, a line could serve as a drive line at one time and as a sence line at another time. In particular, a 2-of-N coding scheme for 60 the electrodes could be used in which there are N combined drive and sense lines and (N(N -1»/2 electrodes with each electrode being capacitively coupled to each of a unique pair of the combined drive and sense lines. This 2-of-N encoding scheme is well known to those 65 versed in the art. Another change that can be made in the foregoing described preferred embodiments can be appreciated by touch sensing array and could be covered by some of the su~porting laye~ 23. In some applic~tions this might be desrred as a deVice to protect portlO.ns of the electrodes other tha? the tabs 20,21 fr?m bemg affected by touch. ~lte';TIatlvely the prot~ctlve layer 25 can be made.thick.m areas .not covermg tabs ~O and 21. The resultmg raised portl.ons of the protecttve l.a!er could serve as well as a gUide to finger touch position. A still further change that could be made in the foregoing described preferred embodiments is in the drive signal patterns shown in FIG. 6 which illustrates a technique of achieving a balancing of drive signals by the simultaneous use of the drive signals DS and the inverted drive signal IDS on a pair of drive lines. It is apparent that other means of balancing could be found which avoid placing a drive signal on more than one drive line at a time and thus avoid having a simultaneous increase in the variable capacitance to ground (YCG) of two electrodes go undetected such as the simultaneous increase in the VCG of electrodes E1 and E2 as is apparent upon referring to Table 3. An alternative scanning and sense signal value processing method is described with reference to FIGS. 17-19. In this method, because of an increased number of drive signal patterns, a distinction can be made between sense signal variations due to the onset of touch and sense signal variations due to the cessation of touch. Based on this distinction, an erroneous assumption within the signal processing program that the system is in the untouched state will not lead to a misinterpretation of a later cessation of touch. According to this technique· the drive signals are provided on the drive lines DLl-8 by the drive signal generator 17 (FIG. 1) in a repetitive sequence of six different drive signal patterns DSP1 through DSP6, as shown in FIG. 17. During DSP1, a drive signal DS is provided on drive line DL1 and an inverted drive signal IDS is provided on drive line DL3. Table 4 shows the association of the drive signal DS, the inverted drive signal IDS, and the drive lines DL during the six different drive signal patterns DSPl-6. TABLE 4 DSPI LINE RECEIVINGDS LINE RECEIV· ING IDS DSP2 DSP3 DSP4 DSP5 DSP6 DLi DL2 DLi DLS DL6 DL5 DL3 DU DL4 DL7 DL8 DL8 Location of DS and IDS on DLl-8 during DSPI-6 4,733,222 23 Referring again to FIG. 17, it is seen that during each drive signal pattern, the paired drive signal DS and inverted drive signal IDS occur simultaneously, are synchronous with each other, of approximately the same value and of opposing polarities. During each cycle of drive signal patterns DSPl-6, a plurality of the drive signal packets, DS, IDS are applied sequentially on some of the drive lines and are paired synchronously with the drive signal packets of opposite polarity IDS, DS on different ones of the other drive lines. For exampIe, drive signal packets DS are applied on drive line DLl during drive signal patterns DSPI and DSP3 and are paired synchronously with inverted drive signals on drive lines DLJ and DL4 during drive signal patterns DSPI and DSP3 respectively. A complee scan of the keyboard of this embodiment corresponds to a sequence in which the drive signal pattern cycle DSPl-6 is repeated for each of the sense lines SLl-8 to yield a total of 48 sense signal values SSVl-48. Table 5 shows the sign under the polarity choice of DS and IDS of Table 3 of the variation of the respective sense signal values associated with the different electrodes E that is due to the onset of an operator touching a touch responsive area overlying parts of the respective electrodes. The SSV number is a processing sequence identification number and not the value of the sense signal. TABLE 5 E SSV 1 1,17 2 9 3 1 4 9,17 5 2,18 6 10 7 2 8 10,18 9 3,19 ':10 11 3 ".'11 ~~12 11,19 --·'''··13 4,20 '~:"14 12 15 4 16 12,20 ROW SIGN E + + + + + + + + 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 SSV SIGN E SSV 5,21 13 5 13,21 6,22 14 6 14,22 7,23 15 7 15,23 8,24 16 8 16,24 + + 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 25,41 33 25 33,41 26,42 34 26 34,42 27,43 35 27 35,43 28,44 36 28 36,44 + + + + + + 5 10 15 20 25 COLUMN SIGN E SSV + + + + + + 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 + + 61 62 63 64 SIGN + + 29,45 37 29 37,45 30,46 38 30 38,46 31,47 39 31 39,47 32,48 40 32 40,48 For example, at the onset of the touch responsive area overlying a tab complex with a tab from row electrode El and a tab from column electrode E48 being touched by an operator there is a positive change in both sense signal values SSVI and SSV17 and there is a negative change in both sense signal values SSV36 and SSV44. It will be appreciated upon inspection of Table 5 that the change in sense signal values SSVl-48 brought about by the cessation of operator touch of a single touch responsive area is distinct from the change brought about by the onset of operator touch. For example, the cessation of operator touch of a touch responsive area overlying a tab complex associated with electrode E5 produces opposite changes to those shown in Table 5. Thus there are significant negative changes produced in sense signal values SSV2 and SSV18. These negative changes are seen to uniquely indicate a cessation of operator touch of a touch responsive area overlying a tab complex associated with electrode E5. These changes are not those that occur with the onset of touch of a touch responsive area overlying a touch element associated with electrode E8 because the required negative change in sense signal value SSVI0 is 24 not present. Also these changes are not those that occur with the onset of touch of a touch responsive area overlying a tab complex associated with electrode E7 since in that case a significant negative change in sense signal value SSV18 is not present. The microprocessor 15 is programmed to process the sense signal values SSVl-48 on line 43 iteratively to ascertain the signs and values of the variations SSVVl-48 in SSVl-48 and to process SSVVl-48 as a group to determine whether such variations resulted from a touch responsive area being touched by an operator. The flow charts for this program are shown in FIGS. 7, 18 and 19. The steps described above in relation to FIG. 7 for the first-described embodiment are also applicable to this program except that in step 2 a scan of the touch sensing array 10 is carried out iteratively with the production of sense signal values SSVl-48 as the program input. Significant program differences are shown in the flow charts of FIGS. 18 and 19. The step-numbering system in FIGS. 18 and 19 agrees in the first digit with that of FIG. 7. In the flow chart of FIG. 18, step 1.1 consists of initializing accumulated difference values ADl-48 to zero and a stability count SC to zero. Sense signal values SSVl-48 are input in step 2.1. Next, in step 2.2 the sense signal variation value SSVVk is calculated and is + + + + + + 50 55 60 65 added to ADk, the previous sense signal value SSVk is then discarded, and the current SSVk is saved for each k between I and 48. In step 2.3 SC is incremented if the magnitude of each of SSVVl-48 is found to be less than a predetermined stability bound SB. Next, in step 2.4 SC is compared to a predetermined stability count limit SCL. If there is equality, there is a branch to step 2.5 where ADl-48 and SC are reset to zero. Otherwise there is a branch to step 3.1. In step 3.1, if the magnitude of each ADl-48 is found to be smaller than a predetermined accumulated difference bound ADB, the touch sensing array is judged to be in the UNTOUCHED state and there is a branch to step 6, otherwise there is a branch to step 4. To summarize the function of the program shown in the flow chart of FIG. 18, during each iteration the current sense signal values SSVl-48 are compared with the respective sense signal values obtained during the previous iteration to determine sense signal variation values SSVVl-48. The SSVVl-48 are added to the respective accumulated difference values ADl-48; and each of ADl-48 is compared to a predetermined accu- 25 4,733,222 mulated difference bound ADB to determine whether the UNTOUCHED state is present. The ADl-48 are reset to an initial value ofzero whcn each of SSVVl-48 remains less than a predetermined stability bound SB over a predetermined number of iterations. Each of 5 SSVl-48 is compared to SB; and the stability count SC is incremented in response to each set of SSVl-48 for which one of SSVVl-48 exceeds the predetermined stability bound SB. ADl-48 and SC are reset to an 10 initial value of zero when SC reaches SCL. Referring next to FIG. 19, in the course of processing the accumulated differences ADl-48 the microprocessor 15 carries out a feature extraction stage in which it determines ROWMAXl, the maximum magnitude of the accumulated differences ADl-24 which are the 15 differences derived from the row electrodes El-32 and ROWMAX2, the second largest magnitude of ADl-24. Next, parameters for a confIrmation stage are determined; these are TOLl, a tolerance value which is a predetermined fraction of ROWMAXI and THR2, a 20 predetermined fraction of ROWMAXI which serves as a threshold value for ROWMAX2. In a similar fashion, the microprocessor 15 determines features COLMAXl, the maximum magnitude of the accumulated differences 25 AD25-48 which are the differences derived from the column electrodes E33-64 and COLMAX2, the second largest magnitude of AD25-48 and determines confumation parameters TOL2, a tolerance value which is a predetermined fraction of COLMAXI and THR4, a 30 predetermined fraction of COLMAXI which serves as a threshold value for COLMAX2. A valid touch onset is judged to be present when separate determinations relating to row electrodes El-32 and to column electrodes E33-64 are affIrmative. 35 ConfIrmation requirements for the row component of a valid touch are that (a) ROWMAXI must exceed a predetermined threshold value THRl; (b) if ROWMAXI is derived from a row electrode to which two drive signal packets are applied during each repetitive 40 sequence of drive signal patterns DSPI-6, then ROWMAX2 must be derived from the same row electrode as ROWMAXI and must exceed the threshold THR2; (c) all magnitudes of ADl-24 other than ROWMAXl, and when applicable ROWMAX2, must be less than TOLl; 45 and (d) the specific one of ADl-24 giving rise to ROWMAXI, and when applicable the specifIc one of AD1-24 giving rise to ROWMAX2, must indicate, on consulting Table 5 (which is stored in the memory of the microprocessor 15), an appropriate response as con- 50 cerns row electrodes to the onset of touch of a single touch responsive area. ConfIrmation requirements for the column component of a valid touch are that (e) COLMAXI must exceed a predetermined threshold value THR3; (t) if 55 COLMAXI is derived from a column electrode to which two drive signal packets are applied during each repetitive sequence of drive signal patterns DSPI-6, then COLMAX2 must be derived from the same colUmn electrode as COLMAXI and must exceed the 60 threshold THR4; (g) all magnitudes of AD25-48 other than COLMAXl, and when applicable COLMAX2, must be less than TOL2; and (h) the specific one of AD25-48 giving rise to COLMAXl, and when applicable the specific one of AD25-48 giving rise to COL- 65 MAX2, must indicate, on consulting Table 5, an appropriate response as concerns column electrodes to the onset of touch of a single touch responsive area. 26 All of such of the eight immediately preceding recited determinations (a)-(h) that are applicable being affirmative indicates the onset of only a single one of the touch responsive areas being touched instantaneously by an operator. Tests for a valid touch response are carried out in steps 4.1 through 4.14, as shown in the flow chart of FIG. 19. In step 4.1 ROMAXI is compared to the first predetermined threshold value THRI. If ROWMAXI exceeds THRI there is a branch to step 4.2 where the tolerance value TOLl is set to some fixed fraction ofthe value of ROWMAXI. Next, in step 4.3 if it is determined that ROWMAXI is derived from a row electrode to which two drive signal packets are applied during each repetitive sequence of drive signal patterns DSPl-6, whereby a valid touch response requires that the second largest magnitude of ADl-24, ROWMAX2, be over the threshold value THR2, there is a branch to step 4.5. Otherwise there is a branch to step 4.4 where each of ADl.,..24 other than the one chosen as ROWMAXI is compared to the tolerance value TOLl. If none of these values exceeds TOLl then the program branches to step 4.7. In step 4.5 ROWMAX2 is compared to the threshold value THR2. If ROWMAX2 is found to be greater than THR2 there is a branch to step 4.6 where each of ADl-24 other than the ones chosen as ROWMAXI and ROWMAX2 is compared to TOLl. If none of these values exceeds TOLl there is a branch to step 4.7 where the accumulated difference associated with ROWMAXI and when applicable the accumulated difference associated with ROWMAX2 are checked using the information in Table 5. If the result is found to be valid, then a VALID ROW TOUCH is judged to be present and the program branches to step 4.8. In step 4.8, the variable COLMAXI is compared to the threshold value THR3. If COLMAXI exceeds THR3 then TOL2 is calculated as a fixed fraction of COLMAXI in step 4.9. In step 4.10, if it is determined that COLMAXI is derived from a column electrode to which two drive signal packets are applied during each repetitive sequence of drive signal patterns DSPl-6, whereby a valid touch response requires that the second largest of AD25-48, COLMAX2, be over the threshold value THR2, there is a branch to step 4.12. Otherwise there is a branch to step 4.11 where each of AD25-48 other than the one closed as COLMAXI is compared to the tolerance value TOL2. If none of these values exceeds TOL2, then the program branches to step 4.14. In step 4.12, COLMAX2 is compared to the threshold value THR4. If COLMAX2 is found to be greater than THR4, there is a branch to step 4.13 where each of AD25-48 other than the ones chosen as COLMAXI and COLMAX2 is compared to TOL2. If none of these values exceeds TOL2, there is a branch to step 4.14 where the accumulated difference associated with COLMAXI and when applicable the accumulated difference associated with COLMAX2 are checked using the information in Table 5. If the result is found to be valid, then the tests for a VALID TOUCH have been passed and there is an exit to step 5.1. Failing any of the tests of steps 4.1, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.11, 4.12, 4.13, or 4.14 causes a branch to step 7 where an INYALID RESPONSE is processed. In step 5.1 processing of a VALID TOUCH response is carried out including the appropriate encoding of the touched touch res~onsive area by row number and by column 4,733,222 27 28 initializing step, step 1 of FIG. 7, the microprocessor number which numbers may be calculated using the creates and stores a table of drive signal control parameinformation in Table 5. As an example of program parameter choices, supters DSCPI-32. For each k between 1 and 32, the papose that accumulated difference values of over sixteen rameter DSCPk controls the amplitude of DS during units are reliably produced by operator touch under 5 the generation of the sense signal value SSVk of Table typical operating conditions. THRI and THR3 may be 3. Methods of controlling the amplitude of a drive sigset equal to eight. SCL may be chosen so that the accunal packet such as DS based on the value of a stored mulated differences ADI-48 are reset to zero after 0.5 parameter are well known to those skilled in the art. seconds of stable operation. In step 4.2 TOLl may be The drive signal control parameter DSCPk is chosen assigned the value of ROWMAXI/4 and in step 4.9 10 during initialization so that the sense signal value SSVk TOL2 may be assigned the value of COLMAXI/4. In is as near as possible to the mid-range value of 128. step 4.5 THR2 may be assigned the value of ROWProcedures for optimaly selecting the value of a control MAXI/2 and in step 4.12 THR4 may be assigned the parameter such as DSCPk are well known to those value of COLMAXI/2. It is thus a feature of this proskilled in the art. Step 1.1 of FIG. 8 is modified so that gram that ADI-48 may be reset to zero when operator 15 the value of the drive signal control parameter resulting touch of a touch responsive area is present for an exin the value of SSVk nearest 128 is stored as DSCPk tended dwell time without danger of misinterpretation and this value ofSSVk nearest 128 is stored as BVk and of the subsequent ADI-48 that occur when operator as RVk. Step 2.1 of FIG. 9 is modified to include an touch is removed from the tab complex. This is in conupdating procedure for the drive signal control parametrast to the situation described above in conjunction 20 ters DSCPI-32. This updating procedure, which is with the first-described preferred embodiment discarried out for each k between 1 and 32 when the basecussed in relation to FIGS. 6-12, where resetting baseline drift compensation count lies in a predetermined line values during touch is prohibited since misinterprerange and when the stored value of SSVk differs from tation of the cessation of touch would then occur. the mid-range value 128 by more than a predetermined Alternatives to the method of resetting of the accu- 25 tolerance value, is described in Table 6. mulated differences ADI-48 as described above will be TABLE 6 obvious to one skilled in the art. For example, resetting Step Procedure could be delayed when valid touch is judged to be present to allow for an extended dwell period and resetA. Store SSVk as OLD_SSV ; ting could be hastened in the period immediately fol- 30 B. Store DSCPk as OLD_DSCP C. Choose the optimal value NEW_DSCP for DSCPk -·lowing a response indicative of the cessation of touch. which results in a value of SSVk as near as As a further example, each ADk could be replaced possible to the mid-range value of 128 _ periodically with a fixed fraction of its value for each k D. Store the value of SSVk nearest to 128 between 1 and 48 and the rate of replacement could obtained in step C as NEW_SSV E. Test the stability of the system: depend on such factors as stability and the state of the 35 I. use OLD_DSCP as DSCPk and obtain a system with respect to touch. further SSVk Except for the differences discussed above in the 2. compare this further SSVk to OLD_SSV description of the preferred embodiment of FIGS. F. If the system is found to be sufficiently stable in Step E then replace DSCPk with _17-19, this preferred embodiment (FIGS. 17-19) is conNEW_DSCP and replace BVk and RVk with structed and functions in the same manner as the pre- 40 NEW_SSV. otherwise DSCPk. BVk. and RVk are __ ferred embodiment first described above in relation to not revised -;;FIGS. 1-12. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that the optional capacitor trimming step of manufacAn addition to Step C in Table 6 may be that the ture discussed in conjunction with Table 3 must be modified if drive signal patterns DSPI-6 of Table 4 are 45 value NEW_DSCP be constrained to differ by no more than a set amount from OLD_DSCP, thereby simplifyemployed, since electrodes associated with two sense ing the search for the optimal value of NEW_DSCP. signal values will necessarily be involved in two trimIn an alternative mode of operation of the system of ming and balancing operations. It will be apparent to FIG. I, the operation of the synchronous demodulator one skilled in the art that the needed algebraic independence of trimming effects is present for simultaneously 50 13 is modified. In this alternate mode, the phase of operation of the synchronous demodulator 13 is controlled achieving balance for all of SSVI-48. by the microprocessor 15 using stored phase control An alternative method of attaining the desired balparameters. Phase effects in synchronous demodulation ance of DS and IDS on each of the sense lines SLI-8 are well known to those skilled in the art. Control of the during each of DSPI-4 which replaces the trimming procedure described in conjunction with Table 3 in- 55 phase of demodulation may be complicated by phase changes in the drive signals which accumulate as the volves modifications of the features described above drive signals propagate through the conductor arrays with reference to FIGS. I, 7, 8, and 9. In this alternative and the band pass amplifier 12 of FIG. 1. The phase of method, the microprocessor 15 and the drive signal demodulation can be fixed throughout all processing generator 17 of FIG. 1 are configured so that the amplitude of one or both of the drive signals DS and IDS of 60 periods of the touch sensing array system or alternatively the phase can be independently regulated during FIG. 6 are under program control. Preferably, the amthe period that each sense signal value SSVk is obtained plitude of DS is under program control and the amplitude of IDS is fixed. The range of possible amplitudes of for each k between 1 and 32. Phase control parameters DS that can be obtained under program control is such may be stored in the read only memory (ROM) of the that, in the absence of operator touch, balancing of DS 65 microprocessor 15 or alternatively the phase control and IDS on each of the sense lines SLI-8 during each of parameters may be determined during initialization of the drive signal periods DSPI-4 can be achieved the touch sensing array system in step 1 of FIG. 6 and through the control of the amplitude of DS. During the stored in the random access memory (RAM) of the 29 4,733,222 microprocessor 15. In the presence of conditions of operation of the touch sensing array system that alter the phase of the drive signals at the synchronous demodulator, dynamic updating of phase control parameters may be employed. 5 I claim: 1. A capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array system comprising an array of electrodes with each electrode including a connected series of conductive tabs; 10 an array of keys with each key overlying at least one tab of at least one of said electrodes for varying the capacitance between said electrode and ground upon the key being touched by an operator; an array of drive lines capacitively coupled to the 15 electrodes, with individual drive lines being coupled to a plurality of the electrodes; drive means for applying drive signals to the drive lines to drive the electrodes coupled thereto; an array of sense lines capacitively coupled to the 20 electrodes, to derive sense signals from the electrodes when drive signals are applied to the drive lines, with each of said sense lines being so coupled to a plurality of the electrodes as to be interconnected via unique combinations of electrodes to 25 said drive lines such that the sense lines derive unique combined patterns of variations in said sense signals in response to actuation of each of the keys; means coupled to the sense lines for sensing said pat- 30 terns of variations in said sense signals; and means coupled to the sensing means for processing the sense signals to provide information associated with any particular key that is touched by an operator; 35 whereby the number of keys exceeds the product of the number of drive lines and the number of sense lines. 2. A system according to claim 1, wherein the electrodes are arrayed in rows and col- 40 umns; and wherein each key overlies a tab complex made up of a tab of one of the row electrodes and a tab of one of the column electrodes. 3. A system according to claim 1, 45 wherein each electrode is capacitively coupled to only one drive line and to only one sense line; and wherein no given drive line and sense line pair is connected to more than one electrode in common. 4. A system according to claim 1, 50 wherein the drive means generate drive signals comprising alternating signal packets, with simultaneously occurring signal packets being generated synchronously on different drive lines; and wherein the means for sensing the sense signals on the 55 sense lines includes means for synchronously demodulating the sensed signals to cause the demodulation of the sensed signals to be synchronous with the generation of the corresponding drive signal packets by the drive means. 60 5. A system according to claim 4, wherein the processing means uses stored phase control parameters to control the phase of demodulation of the sensed signals by the demodulating means. 6. A system according to claim 3, wherein the differ- 65 ent drive signals in combination include alternating signal packets applied at the same time to pairs of drive lines with the simultaneously occuring signal packets 30 being synchronous with each other, of approximately the same amplitude, and of opposing polarities to thereby cause the amplitude of the sense signal appearing on a sense line connected to separate electrodes driven by each of the simultaneously occurring drive signals to be low in relation to the variation in the amplitude of said sense signal resulting from a key being touched by an operator. 7. A system according to claim 6, wherein the capacitors coupling the drive lines to the electrodes and the capacitors coupling the electrodes to the sense lines are trimmed in order to balance each pair of the transmitted drive signals of opposing polarities appearing on a sense line. 8. A system according to claim 6, wherein the processing means controls the amplitudes of one or both of the individual drive signals of each pair of the simultaneously occuring drive signals of opposing polarities in order to balance the transmitted drive signals appearing on a sense line. 9. A system according to claim 6, wherein the drive means comprise a drive signal generator for applying sequentially during each repetitive sequence a plurality of said signal packets on some of the drive lines paired synchronously with said signal packets of opposite polarity on different ones of the other drive lines; and wherein the processing means include means for determining whether a sensed variation in the capacitance between an electrode and circuit ground is due to the onset or the cessation of touching a key by an operator. 10. A system according to claim 1, further comprising fIrst, second, and third dielectric substrates; wherein a fIrst portion of the electrode array is supported by one side of the fIrst dielectric substrate and a second portion of the electrode array is supported by the opposite side of the fIrst dielectric substrate; wherein an individual key of the array of keys overlies a fIrst tab supported by the one side of the fIrst dielectric substrate and extending from an electrode of the fIrst portion of the array and a second tab supported by the opposite side of the fIrst dielectric substrate and extending from an electrode of the second portion of the array adjacent to the position underlying the fIrst tab so that the capacitance between both electrodes and ground is varied when the key is touched by an operator; wherein the drive lines and sense lines are supported by opposite sides of the second dielectric substrate; wherein the third dielectric substrate separates the second dielectric substrate supporting the drive lines and the sense lines from the fIrst dielectric substrate supporting the electrode arrays; and wherein the drive lines and sense lines on the second dielectric substrate are dimensioned and disposed in spatial relation to the electrodes on the fIrst dielectric substrate so that the required capacitive coupling of drive lines to electrodes and of sense lines to electrodes is obtained. 11. A system according to claim 1, further comprising a thin dielectric substrate; wherein a fIrst portion of the electrode array is supported by one side of the dielectric substrate and a second portion of the electrode array is supported by the opposite side of the dielectric substrate; 31 4,733,222 wherein an individual key of the array of keys overlies a f11"st tab supported by the one side of the dielectric substrate and extending from an electrode of the f11"st portion of the array and a second tab supported by the opposite side of the dielectric 5 substrate and extending from an electrode of the second portion of the array adjacent to the position underlying the f11"st tab so that the capacitance between both electrodes and ground is varied 10 when the key is touched by an operator; wherein the drive lines and sense lines are supported by the dielectric substrate; and wherein a drive line or sense line on one side of the substrate is coupled to an electrode on the opposite 15 side of the substrate by a capacitor comprising a f11"st plate supported by the one side of the substrate and extending from the coupled drive line or sense line; and a second oppositely disposed plate supported by the opposite side of the substrate and extending 20 from the coupled electrode. 12. A system according to claim 1, wherein the processing means comprise means for providing sense signal values in accordance with the amplitudes of the respective sense signals; 25 means for processing the sense signal values iteratively to ascertain the values of variations in the sense signal values; and means for processing the sense signal variation values to determine that an operator touch is present at a 30 specific location when the sense signal variation values match a pattern of variation values characteristically associated with touch at that specific location. 13. A system according to claim 12, wherein the 35 means for processing the variation values process the .. variation values as one or more groups in two stages, 'co. the first stage being a feature extraction stage in which a search is made for features indicative of touch and the second stage being a confirmation stage which is carried 40 out when an affrrmative determination is made in the ···.,.f11"st stage and in which tests are carried out to confirm that a pattern of sense signal value variation characteristic of a key being touched by an operator is or is not present. 45 14. A system according to claim 13, wherein the electrode array defmes rows and columns of electrodes; and wherein the means for processing the variation values comprises 50 means for determining in the feature extraction stage whether the maximum of the group of variation values derived from the row electrodes exceeds a predetermined threshold value; means for determining in the confirmation stage 55 whether no other of the group of variation values derived from the row electrodes exceeds a tolerance value that may depend on said maximum variation value derived from the row electrodes; 60 means for determining in the feature extraction stage whether the maximum of the group of variation values derived from the column electrodes exceeds a predetermined threshold value; means for determining in the confirmation stage 65 whether no other of the group of variation values derived from the column electrodes exceeds a tolerance value that may depend on said maxi- 32 mum variation value derived from the column electrodes; and means for determining in response to all of said four immediately preceding recited determinations being affirmative that the maximum variation value derived from the row electrodes and the maximum variation value derived from the column electrodes each resulted from only a single one of the keys being touched instantaneously by an operator. 15. A system according to claim 1, wherein the processing means comprise means for providing sense signal values in accordance with the amplitudes of the respective sense signals; and means for processing the sense signal values iteratively by comparing the sense signal values with baseline values derived from sense signal values provided when the touch sensing array is untouched by an operator to determine which one of three states is present, the first state being an untouched state, the second state being a valid touch state in which a valid touch by an operator is present, and the third state being an invalid response state which occurs when neither said first state nor said second state is present. 16. A system according to claim 15, wherein the processing means revises the baseline values in response to sensed variations in the sense signal values which are stable over a predetermined number of iterations and which indicate the invalid response state of the touch sensing array. 17. A system according to claim 16, wherein the means for revising the baseline values comprises means for storing a set of reserve values derived from a set including each of the respective sense signal values; means for iteratively comparing each sense signal value to each corresponding reserve value; means for revising the stored set of reserve values to correspond to a current set of sense signal values whenever the difference between any sense signal value and the corresponding reserve value exceeds a predetermined bound value; and means for revising the baseline values to correspond to the reserve values when the invalid response state is present for a predetermined number of iterations during which time not revision of the reserve values occurs, no revision of baseline values to correspond to reserve values occurs and the valid touch state is not present. 18. A system according to claim 15, wherein the processing means comprise means for compensating for drift in the sense signal values that are provided when the keys are in the untouched state, wherein the baseline values are updated by either incrementing or decrementing each of the respective baseline values in accordance with whether the baseline value is less or greater than the respective last-provided sense signal value when the untouched state is present for a predetermined number of consecutive iterations during which time no updating of the baseline values occurs. 19. A system according to claim 18, wherein the compensating means further comprises 33 4,733,222 means for delaying by degree the updating of baseline values when the invalid response state occurs only intermittently. 20. A system according to claim 1, wherein the pro5 cessing means comprise . means for providing sense signal values in accordance with the amplitude of the· respective sense signals; means for processing the sense signal values iteratively to determine whether any of the keys has been touched by an operator by comparing the 10 current sense signal values during each iteration with the respective sense signal values during the previous iteration, by adding the same signal variation value derived from said comparison to an accumulated difference value for each sense signal, 15 and by determining whether a key has been touched by processing the accumulated difference values; and means for resetting the accumulated difference values to an initial value when the sense signal variation 20 values remain less than a predetermined bound value over a predetermined number of consecutive iterations during which no resetting of the accumu. lated difference values to the initial value occurs. 21. A capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing 25 array system comprising an array of electrodes with each electrode including a connected series of conductive tabs; a touch responsive panel overlying and coextensive with the electrode array for varying the capaci- 30 tance between a plurality of the electrodes and ground simultaneously upon the interior area of the touch responsive panel being touched by an operator; an array of drive lines capacitively coupled to the 35 electrodes, with individual drive lines being coupled to a plurality of the electrodes; drive means for applying drive signals to the drive lines to drive the electrodes coupled thereto; an array of sense lines capacitively coupled to the 40 electrodes to derive sense signals from the electrodes when drive signals are applied to the drive lines, with each of said sense lines being so coupled to a plurality of the electrodes as to be interconnected via unique combinations of electrodes to 45 said drive lines such that the sense lines derive unique combined patterns of variations in said sense signals in response to touching distinct locations on the panel; means coupled to the sense lines for sensing said pat- 50 terns of variations in said sense signals; and means coupled to the sensing means for processing the sense signals to provide an estimate of the location of operator touch; whereby the number of said distinct locations of op- 55 erator touch that can be estimated exceeds twice the product of the number of drive lines and the number of sense lines. 22. A system according to claim 21, wherein each electrode is capacitively coupled to 60 only one drive line and to only one sense line; and wherein no given drive line and sense line pair is connected to more than one electrode in common. 23. A system according to claim 21, wherein the drive means generate drive signals com- 65 prising alternating signal packets, with simultaneously occurring signal packets being generated synchronously on different drive lines; and 34 wherein the means for sensing the sense signal on the sense lines includes means for synchronously demodulating the sensed signals to cause the demodulation of the sensed signals to be synchronous with the generation of the corresponding drive signal packets by the drive mea~s. 24. A system according to claim 23, wherein the processing means uses stored phase control parameters to control the phase of demodulating of the sensed signals by the demodulating means. 25. A system according to claim 22, wherein the different drive signals in combination include alternating signal packets applied at the same time to pairs of drive lines with the simultaneously occuring signal packets being synchronous with each other, of approximately the same amplitude, and of opposing polarities to thereby cause the amplitude of the sense signal appearing on a sense line connected to separate electrodes driven by each of the simultaneously occurring drive signals to be low in relation to the variation in the amplitude of said sense signal resulting from the touch responsive area being touched by an operator. 26. A system according to claim 25, wherein the capacitors coupling the drive lines to the electrodes and the capacitors coupling the electrodes to the sense lines are trimmed in order to balance each pair of the transmitted drive signals of opposing polarities appearing on a sense line. 27. A system according to claim 25, wherein the processing means controls the amplitudes of one or both of the individual drive signals of each pair of the simultaneously occuring drive signals of opposing polarities in order to balance the transmitted drive signals appearing on a sense line. 28. A system according to claim 21, further comprising fIrst, second, and third dielectric substrates; wherein the electrode array defines rows and columns of electrodes; wherein the row electrodes are supported by one side of the fIrst dielectric substrate and the column electrodes are supported by the opposite side of the first dielectric substrate; wherein the tabs of the column electrodes on one side of the fIrst substrate are disposed so as to lie between the tabs of the row electrodes on the opposite side of the first substrate; wherein the drive lines and sense lines are supported by opposite sides of the second dielectric substrate; wherein the third dielectric substrate separates the second dielectric substrate supporting the drive lines and the sense lines from the fIrst dielectric substrate supporting the electrode arrays; and wherein the drive lines and sense lines on the second dielectric substrate are dimensioned and disposed in spatial relation to the electrodes on the first dielectric substrate so that the required capacitive coupling of drive lines to electrodes and of sense lines to electrodes is obtained. 29. A system according to claim 21, further comprising a thin dielectric substrate; wherein the electrode array defInes rows and columns of electrodes; wherein the row electrodes are supported by one side of the dielectric substrate and the column electrodes are supported by the opposite side of the dielectric substrate~ 35 4,733,222 wherein the tabs of the column electrodes on one side of the substrate are disposed so as to lie between the tabs of the row electrodes on the opposite side of the substrate; wherein the drive lines and sense lines are supported 5 by the dielec;tric substrate; and wherein a drive line or sense line on one side of the substrate is coupled to an electrode on the opposite side of the substrate by a capacitor comprising a first plate supported by the one side of the sub- 10 strate and extending from the coupled drive line or sense line; and a second oppositely disposed plate supported by the opposite side of the substrate and extending from the coupled electrode. 15 30. A system according to claim 21, wherein the processing means comprise means for providing sense signal values in accordance with the amplitudes of the respective sense signals; means for processing the sense signal values itera- 20 tively to ascertain the values of variations in the sense signal values; and means for processing the sense signal variation values to determine that an operator touch is present at a 25 specific location when the sense signal variation values match a pattern of variation values characteristically associated with touch at that specific location. 31. A system according to claim 30, wherein the 30 means for processing the variation values process the variation values as one or more groups in three stages, the first stage being a feature extraction stage in which a search is made for features indicative of touch, the second stage being a confirmation stage which is carried 35 out when an affIrmative determination is made in the frrst stage and in which tests are carried out to confirm that a pattern of sense signal value variation characteristic of touch by an operator is or is not present, and the third stage being an interpolation stage which is carried 40 -. out when affIrmative determinations are made in the /; first and second stages and in which an interpolation procedure using the variation values of a group supplies a coordinate position for the location of touch. 32. A system according to claim 31, 45 wherein the electrode array defines rows and columns of electrodes; and wherein the means for processing the variation values comprises means for determining in the feature extraction 50 stage whether the maximum of the group of variation values derived from the row electrodes exceeds a predetermined threshold value; means for determining in the confIrmation stage whether none of the other variation values de- 55 rived from the row electrodes other than a given number of row electrodes on each side of and adjacent to the row electrode from which said maximum variation value is derived exceeds a tolerance value that is a predetermined fraction 60 of said maximum variation value derived from the row electrodes; means for estimating in the interpolation stage by an interpolation formula the y coordinate of operator touch from the group of variation val- 65 ues derived from the row electrodes; means for determining in the feature extraction stage_ whether the maximum of the group of 36 variation values derived from the column electrodes exceeds a predetermined threshold value; means for determining in the confirmation stage whether none of the other variation values derived from the column electrodes other than a given number of column electrodes on each side of and adjacent to the column electrode from which said maximum variation value is derived exceeds a tolerance value that is a predetermined fraction of said maximum variation value derived from the column electrodes; and means for estimating in the interpolation stage by an interpolation formula the x coordinate of operator touch from the group of variation values derived from the column electrodes. 33. A system according to claim 21, wherein the processing means comprises means for providing sense signal values in accordance with the amplitudes of the respective sense signals; and means for processing the sense signal values iteratively by comparing the sense signal values with baseline values derived from sense signal values provided when the touch sensing array is untouched by an operator to determine which one of three states is present, the first state being an untouched state, the second state being a valid touch state in which a valid touch by an operator is present, and the third state being an invalid response state which occurs when neither said first state nor said second state is present. 34. A system according to claim 33, wherein the processing means revises the baseline values in response to sensed variations in the sense signal values which are stable over a predetermined number of iterations and which indicate the invalid response state of the touch sensing array. 35. A system according to claim 34, wherein the means for revising the baseline values comprises means for storing a set of reserve values derived from a set including each of the respective sense signal values; means for iteratively comparing each sense signal value to each corresponding reserve value; means for revising the stored set of reserve values to correspond to a current set of sense signal values whenever the difference between any sense signal value and the corresponding reserve value exceeds a predetermined bound value; and means for revising the baseline values to correspond to the reserve values when the invalid response state is present for a predetermined number of iterations during which time no revision of the reserve values occurs, no revision of baseline values to correspond to reserve values occurs and the valid touch state is not present. 36. A system according to claim 33, wherein the processing means comprise means for compensating for drift in the sense signal values that are provided when the touch sensing array is in the untouched state, wherein the baseline values are updated by either incrementing or decrementing each of the respective baseline values in accordance with whether the baseline value is less or greater than the respective last-provided sense signal value when the untouched state is prese'lt for a predetermined number of consecutive 37 4,733,222 iterations during which time no updating of the baseline values occurs. 37. A system according to claim 36, wherein the compensating means further comprises means for delaying by degree the updating ofbaseline 5 values when the invalid response state occurs only intermittently. 38. A capacitance-variation-sensitive touch sensing array system comprising an array of electrodes with each electrode including 10 at least one conductive tab; an array of keys with each key overlying at least one tab of at least one electrode of the electrode array , for varying the capacitance between each said overlaid electrode and ground upon the key being 15 touched by an operator; drive means for applying drive signals to drive the electrodes; 0 an array of sense lines coupled to the electrodes; sensing means coupled to each of the sense lines to 2 derive a digital sense value from each of the respective sense lines when drive signals are applied to the electrodes, which digital sense value is dependent on variations in the electrode to ground ca- 25 pacitance of at least one of the electrodes, with said sense lines being so coupled to the electrodes as to be interconnected via the electrodes to said drive lines such that said sense lines derive unique combined patterns of variations in said sense signals in 30 response to actuation of each of the keys; and means for processing the digital sense values iteratively to ascertain the values of variations in the digital sense values and for processing the variation values in two stages, the fIrst stage being a feature 35 extraction stage in which a search is made for said digital sense value variations that may be indicative of a given key being touched and the second stage being a confIrmation stage which is carried out when an affirmative determination is made in the 40 ftrst stage and in which said digital sense value variations for which said afftrmative determination was made during the feature extraction stage are processed together with a predetermined group of digital sense value variations to determine whether 45 said unique combined pattern of digital sense value variations characteristic of said given key being touched by an operator is or is not present. 39. A system according to claim 38, wherein the keys of the touch sensing array deftnes 50 rows and columns of keys; wherein the digital sense values include two groups with the fIrst group providing int:ormation associated with the row of a key and with the second group providing information associated with the 55 column of a key; wherein the effect of operator touch of a single key of the touch sensing array is to predominantly vary one digital sense value in the ftrst group of digital sense values associated with rows of keys and one 60 digital sense value in the second group of digital sense values associated with columns of keys; and wherein the means for processing the variations in the digital sense values comprises means for determining in the feature extraction 65 stage whether the maximum variation in the values associated with rows of keys exceeds a predetermined threshold value; 38 means for determining in the conftrmation stage whether none of the other variations in the digital sense values associated with rows of keys exceeds a tolerance value that may depend on said maximum variation value derived from the rows of keys; means for determining in the feature extraction stage whether the maximum variation in the values associated with columns of keys exceeds a predetermined threshold value; means for determining in the confirmation stage whether none of the other variations in the digital sense values associated with columns of keys exceeds a tolerance value that may depend on said maximum variation value derived from the columns of keys; and means for determining in response to all of said four immediately preceding recited determinations being affirmative that the maximum variation value derived from the rows of keys and the maximum variation value derived from the columns of keys each resulted from only a single key being touched instantaneously by an operator. 40. A system according to claim 38, wherein the processing means comprises means for processing the digital sense values iteratively by comparing the digital sense values with baSeline digital sense values derived from digital sense values provided when the touch sensing array is untouched by an operator to determine which one of three states is present, the ftrst state being an untouched state, the second state being a valid touch state in which a valid touch by an operator is present, and the third state being an invalid response state which occurs when neither said ftrst state nor said second state is present. 41. A system according to claim 40, wherein the processing means revises the baseline digital sense values in response to sensed variations in the digital sense values which are stable over a predetermined number of iterations and which indicate the invalid response state of the touch sensing array. 42. A system according to claim 41, wherein the means for revising the baseline digital sense values comprises means for storing a set of reserve values derived from a set including each of the respective digital sense values; means for iteratively comparing each digital sense value to each corresponding reserve value; means for revising the stored set of reserve values to correspond to a current set of digital sense values whenever the difference between any digital sense value and the corresponding reserve value exceeds a predetermined bound value; and means for revising the baseline digital sense values to correspond to the reserve values when the invalid response state is present for a predetermined number of iterations during which time no revision of the reserve values occurs, no revision of baseline digital sense values to correspond to reserve values occurs and the valid touch state is not present. 43. A system according to claim 40, wherein the processing means comprises means for compensating for drift in the baseline digital sense values that are provided when the touch sensing array is in the untouched state 39 4,733,222 wherein the baseline digital sense values are updated by either incrementing or decrementing each of the respective baseline digital sense values in accordance with whether the baseline digital sense value is less or greater than the respective last-provided 5 digital sense value when the untouched state is present for a predetermined number of consecutive iterations during which time no updating of the baseline digital sense values occurs. 44. A system according to claim 43, wherein the 10 compensating means further comprises means for delaying by degree the updating of baseline digital sense values when the invalid response state occurs only intermittently. 45. A system according to claim 9, wherein the pro- 15 cessing means comprise means for providing sense signal values in accordance with the amplitudes of the respective sense signals; and means for processing the sense signal values itera- 20 tively to ascertain the values of accumulated differences in the sense signal values and for processing the accumulated differences as a group to determine whether any said differences resulted from a key being touched by an operator; 25 wherein the electrode array dermes rows and columns of electrodes; and wherein the means for processing the accumulated differences comprises means for determining whether the maximum ac- 30 cumulated difference derived from the row electrodes exceeds a predetermined threshold value; means for determining whether all other accumulated differences derived from the same row electrode as said maximum accumulated differ- 35 ence derived from the row electrodes exceed a 40 45 50 55 60 65 40 threshold value which may depend on said maximum accumulated difference derived from the row electrodes; means for determining that no accumulated difference derived from a row electrode other than said same row electrode exceeds a tolerance value which may depend on said maximum accumulated difference derived from the row electrodes; means for determining whether the maximum accumulated difference derived from the column electrodes exceeds a predetermined threshold value; means for determining whether all other accumulated differences derived from the same column electrode as said maximum accumulated difference derived from the column electrodes exceed a threshold value which may depend on said maximum accumulated difference derived from the column electrodes; means for determining that no accumulated difference derived from a column electrode other than said same column electrode exceeds a tolerance value which may depend on said maximum accumulated difference derived from the column electrodes; and means for determining, in response to such of said six immediately preceding recited determinations that are applicable being affirmative, that the accumulated differences derived from the row electrodes and the accumulated differences derived from the column electrodes resulted from the onset of only a single one of the keys being touched instantaneously by an operator. * * * * *

Disclaimer: Justia Dockets & Filings provides public litigation records from the federal appellate and district courts. These filings and docket sheets should not be considered findings of fact or liability, nor do they necessarily reflect the view of Justia.


Why Is My Information Online?