ANALOG DEVICES AN-766 Service Manual

AN-766

LCD SIGNAL

TOUCH SCREEN

SIGNAL

NOISY

PERIOD

NOISY

PERIOD

T

APPLICATION NOTE

One Technology Way • P.O. Box 9106 • Norwood, MA 02062-9106 • Tel: [phone] • Fax: [phone] • www.analog.com

Using the Noise Reduction Feature on the AD7877

by Susan Pratt

INTRODUCTION

The AD7877 touch screen controller is a 12-bit successive
approximation ADC with a synchronous serial interface
and low on resistance switches for driving touch screens.
The AD7877 features direct battery measurement on two
inputs, temperature and touch-pressure measurement.

The AD7877 has many user-programmable conversion
controls, which include variable acquisition time, first
conversion delay, and averaging. It is ideal for battery­powered systems such as personal digital assistants,
smart phones, and other portable equipment with resistive
touch screens.

One of the AD7877’s key features is the STOPACQ input
pin, which can be used to reduce the effects of noise on
the touch screen measurements. This application note
explains in detail how noise can affect the touch screen
measurements, where this noise comes from, and how to
use the AD7877’s STOPACQ feature to reduce or eliminate
this noise in an application.

TOUCH SCREENS AND NOISE

A 4-wire touch screen consists of two flexible, transparent,
resistive coated layers. The two resistive layers act like a
potential divider, and X and Y positional measurements
on the screen are proportional to the voltage that is sensed
from these layers. A touch screen is essentially a large
resistor, so external noise can be coupled onto it and
distort its measurements. Adding capacitors to the touch
screen pins will reduce the effect of noise, but this does
not eliminate the noise completely. These capacitors also
have the effect of increasing the touch screen settling time,
and in many cases, this is not desirable.

Noise in touch screen systems can come from the display.
In most applications, the touch screen sits on a display,
such as an LCD. Because the touch screen is in such close
proximity to the LCD, noise is coupled from the display
onto the touch screen’s resistive layers, causing errors
in the positional measurements. This noise issue can
be a significant factor in the accuracy of resistive touch
screens, particularly for such end-user applications as
handwriting recognition. In the future, as touch screens
become thinner, the effects of noise from the LCD will
become more pronounced.

LCD NOISE

An LCD has many control signals, including display
refresh control, clock, and drive signals. During the display
refresh cycle in particular, noise is present in the system.
As the LCD horizontal lines are written, the noise is most
prominent. It has been shown that the noise in the system
is framed by an LCD control signal. This signal is related
to the LCD horizontal refresh phase, and may be the LCD
synchronization pulse or some other system-generated
signal that is active during the noisy period. Two typical
control signals on different types of LCD are the HSYNC
signal and the V

The frequency of the HSYNC signal can vary significantly,
depending on the type of LCD. The signal is normally only
asserted for a small fraction of its period, that is, its duty
cycle is not 50-50. The majority of the noise coupled onto
the touch screen occurs while this LCD signal is asserted.
Some residual noise may occur outside the HSYNC signal’s
active period.

A typical V
of 10 kHz, and a 50-50 duty cycle. In this case, noise may be
most prominent in the system at the signal transitions.

COM

Figure 1. Noise from the LCD Interferes with the
Touch Screen Measurements

signal.

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signal is show in Figure 2. It has a frequency

REV. 0

AN-766

VOLTS (V)

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

–1

FIRST CONV

DELAY

ACQ1CONV

1

ACQ 2

ABORTED

RESTART
ACQ 2

CONV

2

ACQ

2

ACQ

3

ACQ

4

NOISY

PERIOD

NOISY

PERIOD

NOISY

PERIOD

1

STOP_ACQ

USER TOUCH

2 3

NO ACQ
HERE

ACQ

2

CONV

3

REV. 0

To cater for signals of different polarities on the STOPACQ
pin, there is a user-programmable register bit to indicate
whether the signal is active high or low. The POL bit is Bit
3 in Control Register 2, address 02h. See Table I for more
information.

To disable monitoring of STOPACQ, the pin should be tied
low if the signal polarity is active high, or tied high if the
signal polarity is active low. If the STOPACQ pin functional­ity is disabled, then any signal applied to the STOPACQ pin
is disregarded by the AD7877. The polarity bit defaults to 0
on power-up. The user must ensure that this bit contains
the correct value for the type of signal on STOPACQ.

Figure 2. Typical V

COM

Signal

THE AD7877 STOPACQ FEATURE

The AD7877 includes a feature to reduce the impact of LCD
noise on touch screen measurements. The AD7877 has an
ADC with sample-and-hold architecture. It is only during
the sample, or acquisition phase, of the ADC’s operation
that noise from the LCD screen has an effect on the ADC’s
measurements. During the hold, or conversion phase, the
noise has no effect, as the voltage at the input of the ADC
has already been acquired. The noise is present when the
LCD signal is active. So, no acquisitions should take place
during the LCD signal active period.

The LCD control signal should be connected to the AD7877
via the external STOPACQ pin. The AD7877 then monitors
this signal and ensures that no input signal to the ADC is
acquired during the noisy period.

While the STOPACQ pin is being monitored, the user can
drive the pin with a signal such as V

or HSYNC, or with

COM

some other suitable control signal. When the signal is
active, acquisitions on all input channels on the AD7877
are disabled, irrespective of the programmed mode of the
device. When the signal on the STOPACQ pin deasserts,
the ADC will reset to the start of the acquisition phase for
the next channel to be measured. By programming the
acquisition time, any noise from the LCD that is not framed
by the signal at STOPACQ can also be avoided. (For more
information on AD7877 modes and programming the
acquisition time, see the AD7877 data sheet.)

Table I. STOPACQ POL Bit Description

POL Bit Value STOPACQ Functionality

0 Input signal is active low:
Low signal level frames noise

1 Input signal is active high:
High signal level frames noise

STOPACQ TIMING DETAILS

If the STOPACQ signal becomes active during an acquisition
cycle, the current acquisition is aborted. Any acquisition
data received up to this point is discarded. When STOPACQ
deasserts, the acquisition period is restarted from the
beginning. The acquisition time on the AD7877 can be
programmed by the user to be 2 s, 4 s, 8 s, or 16 s.

If the STOPACQ signal becomes active while the AD7877
is in a conversion phase, then the conversion goes ahead
as normal. However, the next acquisition phase does not
begin until the STOPACQ signal deasserts.

There is a first conversion delay before the first acquisi­tion period in a sequence, and before every touch screen
measurement, to allow the touch screen to settle. This
delay is programmable by the user and can be 500 ns,
128 ms, 1.024 ms, or 8.19 ms. If the STOPACQ signal be­comes active during the first conversion delay time, nothing
happens. The STOPACQ signal is ignored since noise from
the LCD screen will not impact the screen settling time.
This is illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Operation of the AD7877 when STOPACQ is Active

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