Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHP) is expanding its touchscreen controller portfolio with the introduction of a capacitive touchscreen controller for home appliances that is robust against noise and operates in harsh environments.

Microchip Technology Inc. today announced the availability of the MXT448UD-HA and MXT640UD-HA, its latest family of IEC/UL 60730 Class B certified touchscreen controllers.

These new products expand the company’s portfolio of Class B devices 10 inches and larger, providing customers with dedicated solutions and scalability for large screens.

These new products comply with the IEC61000-4-6 Class A standard for conducted noise immunity up to 10 Vrms (Industrial Level 3), as well as Class B standards.

This allows products with touchscreen interfaces to operate even in very harsh manufacturing environments where electromagnetic interference (EMI) can occur from conveyor belts, power rails and assembly machines.

Additionally, home appliance manufacturers can benefit from improved reliability and increased production yields.

This is a huge improvement over the past when unprotected touchscreens were used in ovens and washing machines, which could cause electromagnetic interference from unshielded power transmission, electric motors and surrounding electrical equipment, and could result in incorrect or unrecognized touches.

New touchscreen controlsThe device has two serial interfaces (SPI and I²C). These two interfaces operate simultaneously, enabling design redundancy by integrating safety functions such as separate communication between the safety microcontroller (MCU) and the host microprocessor (MPU) and the touchscreen controller. Touch events are delivered to both processors simultaneously. This unique architecture allows the development of safety-critical firmware on a dedicated, safety-proven MCU, separate from the main processor that runs the appliance’s GUI. This enables developers to shorten time to market and reduce development costs.

“As touchscreens add more control to products, reliable operation of the interface is critical to both protecting and satisfying the user experience,” said Clayton Pillion, director of Microchip’s Human Machine Interface business unit. “maXTouch® technology provides superior noise immunity to support safe and robust operation over the product life cycle. Microchip has worked closely with customers to deliver the first family of functionally safe touch controllers and is seeing widespread adoption where noise immunity is critical to the success of a product.”

The two appliance devices mentioned above (ATMXT448UD-CCUHA1, ATMXT640UD-CCUHA1) are currently in mass production, with unit pricing starting at $2.40 for the ATMXT448UD in quantities of 10,000 units.