Silicon Laboratories Inc. (NASDAQ: SLAB), a leader in high-performance analog-intensive mixed-signal ICs, announced the release of a USB touchscreen bridge IC that simplifies the connection between a touch controller and a host CPU in large-screen display computing systems. Silicon Labs' new CP2501 USB touchscreen bridge provides a programmable and easy-to-use USB interface for laptops, tablets, e-books, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), kiosks, ATMs, and Point-of-sale (POS) equipment that utilize touchscreen displays.

The CP2501 device is the only semiconductor product with pre-programmed touchscreen USB interface software that provides out-of-the-box USB functionality for large-screen touchscreen applications. Touchscreen systems used in today's computing applications primarily utilize USB technology as the interface for communication between the host CPU and the touchscreen controller. However, since most touch controllers currently on the market do not directly support USB, a separate IC is required to bridge the communication gap. The most common solution among developers is to use a standard microcontroller (MCU) as the bridge chip and either develop the touchscreen USB interface software themselves or purchase it from a reseller. However, this approach is costly, time-consuming, and requires specialized USB expertise.

The CP2501 touchscreen bridge facilitates the development of touchscreen applications by providing pre-programmed firmware that allows developers to easily and quickly configure touchscreen settings, as well as increasing software development efficiency and accelerating the time-to-market for products. This USB interface is compatible with the Windows 7 touch interface and supports USB Human Interface Device (HID) digitizer class drivers. Additionally, the CP2501 supports Silicon Labs' GUI-based configuration wizard. This allows developers to connect the touch controller to a USB system without having to develop custom USB firmware separately. Using this configuration tool, developers can create firmware projects, customize USB parameters, and generate USB touchscreen descriptors. Furthermore, utilizing a pre-programmed USB bootloader allows for easy handling of firmware updates within the system.

Mark Thompson, Vice President of the Embedded Mixed-Signal Product Family at Silicon Labs, stated, “Recently, there has been an increasing demand for applications that want to integrate large touchscreens into computing systems,” and emphasized, “By utilizing the CP2501 USB touchscreen bridge, these applications can be implemented easily and quickly even without expertise in USB software.” He explained, “Building on Silicon Labs’ leadership in high-performance analog-intensive mixed-signal technology, the CP2501 was designed to accelerate the development of touchscreen applications with USB connectivity compatible with Windows 7.”

The CP2501 IC supports capacitive and resistive touch screen technologies, and for I2C, UART (universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter), and SPI (serial peripheral interface) buses