Atmel Unveils Revolutionary Touch Sensors

SAN JOSE, CA /PRNewswire/ -- Atmel Corp., a leader in microcontroller and touch technology solutions, announced that it is sampling to select customers XSense, its revolutionary, highly flexible film-based touch sensor. XSense touch sensors will not only enable a new generation of smartphones and tablets, but also extend touch capabilities into a wider array of new consumer and industrial products.

Based on a proprietary roll-to-roll metal mesh technology, XSense touch sensors provide a high-performance alternative to existing touch sensors. Original equipment manufacturers will now be able to develop larger, lighter, sleeker, curved, and edgeless designs for smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks, and a host of new touch-enabled products.

XSense touch sensors are optimal for a wide range of touchscreen products, enabling thinner sensor stacks, with superior performance and excellent optical clarity. With such advantages as flawless touch performance, enhanced noise immunity, low sheet resistance, and low power consumption, designers will now be able to turn unique touch-based concepts into functional designs at lower total system costs compared with current market alternatives.

"Our groundbreaking XSense technology transforms the touch experience for users of new smartphones, tablets, and other touch-enabled products," said Atmel President and CEO Steve Laub. "XSense launches a new era of touch design, enabling our customers to redefine touch and to create a new class of products that were previously only imaginable. Combined with Atmel maXTouch controllers, Atmel provides a completely optimized, unparalleled touch experience, extending its product portfolio deeper into the touch eco-system."

"The combined touchscreen sensor and controller IC industry is over $10 billion dollars currently and is still growing rapidly. There is significant demand in the industry for larger, thinner, and lighter touch sensors," said Dr. Jennifer Colegrove, Vice President of Emerging Display Technologies, NPD DisplaySearch. "ITO-alternative material, such as Atmel's new touch sensor technology XSense, is penetrating into the touch sensor market to offer designers new thin, lightweight, flexible, and durable designs."

XSense Availability
XSense touch sensors are sampling now, with production quantities scheduled to be available in the third quarter of 2012.

About Atmel
Atmel Corp. is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, capacitive touch solutions, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory, and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry's broadest intellectual property technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete systems, focused on industrial, consumer, communications, computing, and automotive markets.

Atmel, Atmel logo and combinations thereof, maXTouch, and others are registered trademarks, and XSense and others are trademarks of Atmel Corp. or its subsidiaries. Other terms and product names may be trademarks of others.