A 15nW Per Button Noise-Immune Readout IC for Capacitive Touch Sensor

Abstract

This paper presents a readout IC that uses an asynchronous charge-redistribution-based capacitance-to-digital-converter (CDC) to digitize the capacitance of a touch sensor. Thanks to the power efficient tracking algorithm, the CDC consumes negligible power consumption in the absence of touch events. To facilitate stand-alone or wake-on-touch applications, the CDC can be periodically triggered by a co-integrated ultra-low power relaxation oscillator. At a 38 Hz scan-rate, the readout IC consumes 15 nW per touch sensor, which is the lowest reported to date.