Cypress To Host Free Online Seminar On Touch Screen Essentials On December 6.

Presented in Conjunction with EE Times, Netseminar Will Give Overview of Touch Screens, Focusing on PSoC([R])-based Capacitive-Sensing Technologies

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:CY) today announced that it will host a free online seminar that explores touch sensitive interfaces. The 60-minute seminar entitled "Touch Screen Essentials," will be presented in conjunction with CMP Media's Electronic Engineering Times on Wednesday, December 6 at 9:00 a.m. PST.

An increasingly broad array of applications are using touch screen interfaces as differentiators, including MP3 players, cell phones, ATMs, POS terminals, information kiosks, casino gaming machines, PDAs, tablet PCs, appliances and environmental control panels. The NetSeminar will explore touch screen technologies including the popular, new capacitive touch screens. It will look at their properties, substrates, sensing methods, and design strategies. Finally, it will introduce the unique PSoC([R]) (Programmable System-on-Chip[TM]) CapSense controller IC that enables rapid, cost-efficient integration of a touch screen into a product. Interested parties can find additional information and register for the seminar at: http://cmpnetseminars.com/TSG/?K=4TO&Q=482.

A single CapSense device can replace dozens of mechanical switches and controls with a simple, touch-sensitive interface. CapSense-based "button" and "slider" controls are more reliable than their mechanical counterparts because they are not prone to the environmental wear-and-tear that affects exposed buttons and switches. Cypress recently announced a new optimized CapSense device that delivers 45X better noise immunity, 30 percent faster update speeds with 60 percent lower power consumption and 300 percent greater resolution than previous devices, improving on the industry's most flexible capacitive sensing solution. Cypress has surpassed 100 CapSense design wins worldwide in applications that include mobile handsets, portable media players, white goods, computers, printers and automotive, among others.

About CapSense

Capacitive sensing is fast becoming the solution of choice for front-panel display and media control applications. Increased durability, decreased bill of materials (BOM) and a clean, minimalist appearance make this elegant interface attractive to a wide range of designs. With Cypress's CapSense interface, a finger on the interface forms an electrical connection with embedded sensors, which work with the PSoC device to translate data about the finger's presence into various system control functions. The sensor itself is only a copper pad on the PCB, not an actual component. All of the circuitry for controlling the sensor is inside the PSoC device.

Cypress's CapSense solution offers system designers numerous advantages over capacitive sensing products built around modules and sub-assemblies, including increased flexibility, reduced board space and lower cost. Because of the unique PSoC architecture, designers can easily integrate multiple functions (e.g., LED drivers and LCD displays), in addition to capacitive sensing. The PSoC CapSense solution also delivers benefits such as easy communications using either I2C or SPI interfaces, the ability to implement both trackpad (x-y matrix) and linear slider applications with the same device, and the ability to make quick design changes using the flash-based PSoC architecture.

PSoC -- Because Change Happens

PSoC devices employ a highly configurable system-on-chip architecture for embedded control design, offering a flash-based equivalent of a field-programmable ASIC without lead-time or NRE penalties. PSoC devices integrate configurable analog and digital circuits, controlled by an on-chip microcontroller, providing both enhanced design revision capability and component count savings. They include up to 32 Kbytes of Flash memory, 2 Kbytes of SRAM, an 8x8 multiplier with 32-bit accumulator, power and sleep monitoring circuits, and hardware I2C communications.

The flexible PSoC resources allow designers to future-proof their products by enabling firmware-based changes during design, validation, production, and in the field. The unique PSoC flexibility shortens design cycle time and allows for late-breaking feature enhancements. All PSoC devices are also dynamically reconfigurable, enabling designers to morph internal resources on-the-fly, utilizing fewer components to perform a given task.

Easy to use development tools enable designers to select configurable library elements for analog functions such as amplifiers, ADCs, DACs, filters and comparators and digital functions such as timers, counters, PWMs, SPI and UARTs. The PSoC family's analog features include rail-to-rail inputs, programmable gain amplifiers and up to 14-bit ADCs with exceptionally low noise, input leakage and voltage offset.

A single PSoC device can integrate as many as 100 peripheral functions saving customers design time, board space and power consumption while improving system quality. Customers can save from 5 cents to as much as $10 in system costs.

About Cypress

Cypress solutions perform: consumer, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial, and solar. Leveraging proprietary silicon processes, Cypress's product portfolio includes a broad selection of wired and wireless USB devices, CMOS image sensors, timing solutions, specialty memories, high-bandwidth synchronous and micropower memory products, optical solutions and reconfigurable mixed-signal arrays. Cypress trades on the NYSE under the ticker symbol CY. Visit us at www.cypress.com.

Cypress, the Cypress logo and PSoC are registered trademarks and "Programmable System-on-Chip" is a trademark of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.