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INTRODUCTION

Touch Screens are display as well as input devices. These are electronicvisual devices that are sensitive to pressure thus detect the presence and location ofa touch within the display area. The screens are sensitive to pressure; a userinteracts with the computer by touching pictures or words on the screen. The term“Touch” generally refers to touch or contact to the display of the device by a fingeror hand.

Neonode has patented and commercialized the zForce (an abbreviation for“zero force necessary”) touch technology, which was designed to overcome manyof the limitations of today’s touchscreens. The premise of the company’s approachentails the projection of an infrared grid across an electronic display. As users tap,swipe, or write on the screen, zforce detects the location of the touch based on theInterruption in infrared light projecting across the screen, which translates tocoordinates on the grid. The zforce architecture and input method is believed to beunique to Neonode.

A zforce Touch Screen can be activated by multiple modes of input,including bare fingers, gloves, styluses, and (multiple simultaneous to touches).It isuncommon today to find both pens as well as recognizes multi touch these featuresinnately built into the same touchscreen. This contact sends a signal to the deviceto recognize the touch. Although relatively low cost, resistive touchscreens do nottypically allow multi-touch(swiping, gesturing).

About Neonode Inc. : Neonode Inc. is the leading provider of optical touchscreen solutions for hand-held and small to midsize devices. Neonode is offeringsoftware licenses and engineering design services that enable companies to makehigh functionality touch screens at a low cost. zForce ® is the name of Neonode’sproprietary patented touch screen technology. Neonode Inc. is listed on the OTCBBunder the symbol NEON.OB. Neonode is a trademark and zForce® is a registeredtrademark of Neonode Inc.

zForce® : Neonode’s patented touch solution for portable devices, zForce, ismany times more cost effective than any other high performance touch solution inthe market today. zForce® supports high resolution pen writing in combination withfinger navigation including gestures, multi-touch, sweeps and much more. zForce®doesn’t require an overlay on top of the display window and provide a 100% clearviewing experience. zForce is the only viable touch screen solution that operates onthe new revolutionary reflective display panels. zForce® is currently beingintegrated into a variety of mobile phones, eReaders, automotive applications,mobile internet and tablet devices.

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HISTORY

Touch screens originally emerged from academic and corporate research labsin the second half of the 1960s. In 1971, the first "touch sensor" was developed byDoctor Sam Hurst (founder of Elographics) while he was an instructor at theUniversity of Kentucky. This sensor was called the "Elograph" and was patented byThe University of Kentucky Research Foundation. One of the first places wherethey gained some visibility was in the terminal of a computer-assisted learningterminal that came out in 1972 as part of the PLATO project. They havesubsequently become familiar in kiosk systems, such as in retail and tourist settings,on point of sale systems, on ATMs and on PDAs where a stylus is sometimes usedto manipulate the GUI and to enter data. The popularity of smart phones, PDAs,portable game consoles and many types of information appliances is driving thedemand for, and the acceptance of, touchscreens. The HP-150 from 1983 can beconsidered as the world's earliest commercial touch screen computer. It doesn'tactually have a touch screen in the strict sense, but a 9" Sony CRT surrounded byinfrared transmitters and receivers which detect the position of any nontransparentobject on the screen.

Until the early 1980s, most consumer touch screens could only sense onepoint of contact at a time, and few have had the capability to sense how hard one istouching. With commercialization of touchscreens the technology used changed tomultipoint technology from dingle point. Historically, the touchscreen sensor and itsaccompanying controller-based firmware have been made available by a wide arrayof after-market system integrators and not by display, chip or motherboardmanufacturers. With time, however, display manufacturers and chip manufacturersworldwide have acknowledged the trend toward acceptance of touchscreens as ahighly desirable 4 user interface component and have begun to integratetouchscreen functionality into the fundamental design of their products.

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CAPABILITY

The Touch Screens come with a variety of definite advantages overnormal/conventional input-output devices. Some of them are :

Easy to use: This provides for a rich user interface experience as thissupports for a very intuitive easy to use environment and is facilitated by justa touch.

Saves space: In this world where cost of real estate [i.e., property prices]are sky rocketing intelligent utilization of space is of great importance. Thustouch screens facilitate for this by saving space of keyboard and this findsmany application in day today activities.

Speed and Reliability: While laptops do come with a mouse pad and aUSB port to allow you to attach an external mouse to your laptop for easiernavigation, the amount of time spent to do simple navigations with thesedevices are extremely slow as compared to simply touching the screen andpointing directly at the option. Having a touchscreen laptop would makenavigation extremely faster and more reliable. No need to worry aboutclicking the wrong option, especially if you are making transactions over theInternet.

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COMPONENTSA basic touchscreen has three main components: a touch sensor, a controller,

and a software driver. The touchscreen is an input-output device, so it needs to becombined with a display and a PC or other device to make a complete touch inputsystem.

TOUCH SENSORA touch screen sensor is a clear glass panel with a touch responsive surface.

The touch sensor/panel is placed over a display screen so that the responsive area ofthe panel covers the viewable area of the video screen. There are several differenttouch sensor technologies on the market today, each using a different method todetect touch input. The sensor generally has an electrical current or signal goingthrough it and touching the screen causes a voltage or signal 5 change. This voltagechange is used to determine the location of the touch to the screen.

CONTROLLERThe controller is a small PC card that connects between the touch sensor and

the PC. It takes information from the touch sensor and translates it into informationthat PC can understand. The controller is usually installed inside the monitor forintegrated monitors or it is housed in a plastic case for external touch add-ons/overlays. The controller determines what type of interface/connection you willneed on the PC. Integrated touch monitors will have an extra cable connection onthe back for the touchscreen. Controllers are available that can connect to aSerial/COM port (PC) or to a USB port (PC or Macintosh). Specialized controllersare also available that work with DVD players and other devices.

SOFTWARE DRIVERThe driver is a software update for the PC system that allows the touchscreen

and computer to work together. It tells the computer's operating system how to

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interpret the touch event information that is sent from the controller. Most touchscreen drivers today are a mouse emulation type driver. This makes touching thescreen the same as clicking your mouse at the same location on the screen. Thisallows the touchscreen to work with existing software and allows new applicationsto be developed without the need for touchscreen specific programming. Someequipment such as thin client terminals, DVD players, and specialized computersystems either do not use software drivers or they have their own built-in touchscreen driver.

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TYPES OF TOUCH SCREEN TECHNOLOGIES

I. RESISTIVEA resistive touchscreen panel comprises several layers, the most important of

which are two thin, transparent electrically-resistive layers separated by a thinspace. These layers face each other with a thin gap between. The top screen (thescreen that is touched) has a coating on the underside surface of the screen. Justbeneath it is a similar resistive layer on top of its substrate. One layer hasconductive connections along its sides, the other along top and bottom. A voltage isapplied to one layer, and sensed by the other. When an object, such as a fingertip orstylus tip, presses down onto the outer surface, the two layers touch to becomeconnected at that point: The panel then behaves as a pair of voltage dividers, oneaxis at a time. By rapidly switching between each layer, the position of a pressureon the screen can be read.

Resistive touch is used in restaurants, factories and hospitals due to its highresistance to liquids and contaminants. A major benefit of resistive touchtechnology is its low cost. Additionally, as only sufficient pressure is necessary forthe touch to be sensed, they may be used with gloves on, or by using anything rigidas a finger/stylus substitute. Disadvantages include the need to press down, and arisk of damage by sharp objects. Resistive touchscreens also suffer from poorercontrast, due to having additional reflections from the extra layer of material placedover the screen.

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II. CAPACITIVE

A capacitive touchscreen panel consists of an insulator such as glass, coatedwith a transparent conductor such as indium tin oxide (ITO). The human body isalso an electrical conductor, touching the surface of the screen results in a distortionof the screen’s electrostatic field, measurable as a change in capacitance. Differenttechnologies may be used to determine the location of the touch. The location isthen sent to the controller for processing.

Unlike a resistive touchscreen, one cannot use a capacitive touchscreenthrough most types of electrically insulating material, such as gloves. Thisdisadvantage especially affects usability in consumer electronics, such as touchtablet PCs and capacitive smartphones in cold weather. It can be overcome with aspecial capacitive stylus, or a special-application glove with an embroidered patchof conductive thread passing through it and contacting the user's fingertip.

The largest capacitive display manufacturers continue to develop thinner andmore accurate touchscreens, with touchscreens for mobile devices now beingproduced with 'in-cell' technology that eliminates a layer, such as Samsung's SuperAMOLED screens, by building the capacitors inside the display itself.

A simple parallel plate capacitor has two conductors separated by a dielectriclayer. Most of the energy in this system is concentrated directly between the plates.Some of the energy spills over into the area outside the plates, and the electric fieldlines associated with this effect are called fringing fields. A parallel plate capacitoris not a good choice for such a sensor pattern. Placing a finger near fringing electricfields adds conductive surface area to the capacitive system. The additional chargestorage capacity added by the finger is known as finger capacitance, CF.

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III. PROJECTED CAPACITANCE

Projected Capacitive Touch (PCT; also PCAP) technology is a variant ofcapacitive touch technology. All PCT touch screens are made up of a matrix of rowsand columns of conductive material, layered on sheets of glass. This can be doneeither by etching a single conductive layer to form a grid pattern of electrodes, or byetching two separate, perpendicular layers of conductive material with parallel linesor tracks to form a grid. Voltage applied to this grid creates a uniform electrostaticfield, which can be measured. When a conductive object, such as a finger, comesinto contact with a PCT panel, it distorts the local electrostatic field at that point.This is measurable as a change in capacitance. If a finger bridges the gap betweentwo of the "tracks", the charge field is further interrupted and detected by thecontroller. The capacitance can be changed and measured at every individual pointon the grid (intersection). Therefore, this system is able to accurately track touches.Due to the top layer of a PCT being glass, it is a more robust solution than lesscostly resistive touch technology. Additionally, unlike traditional capacitive touchtechnology, it is possible for a PCT system to sense a passive stylus or glovedfingers. However, moisture on the surface of the panel, high humidity, or collecteddust can interfere with the performance of a PCT system. There are two types ofPCT: mutual capacitance and self-capacitance.

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IV. INFRAREDIn this technology infrared (IR) light-emitting diodes(LEDs) are placed at the

opposite edges to analyze the system and detect the touch event. The LED andphoto sensor pairs create a grid of light beams across the display. An object (such asa finger or pen) that touches the screen interrupts the light beams, causing ameasured decrease in light at the corresponding photo sensors. The measured photosensor outputs can be used to locate a touch-point coordinate.

Widespread adoption of infrared touchscreens has been hampered by twofactors: the relatively high cost of the technology compared to competing touchtechnologies and the issue of performance in bright ambient light. This latterproblem is a result of background light increasing the noise floor at the opticalsensor, sometimes to such a degree that the touchscreen’s LED light cannot bedetected at all, causing a temporary failure of the touch screen.

However, certain features of infrared touch remain desirable and representattributes of the ideal touchscreen, including the option to eliminate the glass orplastic overlay that most other touch technologies require in front of the display. Inmany cases, this overlay is coated with an electrically conducting transparentmaterial such as indium-tin oxide (ITO), which reduces the optical quality of thedisplay. This advantage of optical touchscreens is extremely important for manydevice and display vendors since devices are often sold on the perceived quality ofthe user display experience.

Another feature of infrared touch which has been long desired is the digitalnature of the sensor output when compared to many other touch systems that rely onanalog-signal processing to determine a touch position.

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V. ZFORCE TOUCHSCREEN TECHNOLOGY

Neonode overcomes limitations of both resistive and capacitive screens withits zForce® technology creating a next-generation touch surface that the Companybelieves can be more economical as well as higher performing than either of themain technologies in use today. Currently, projected-capacitance touch screensrepresent the mainstream technology for multi-touch interfaces. However, zForce®also enables the convenient multi-touch features of capacitive screens but at the coststructure of more affordable resistive technologies. Further, as overviewed on, inFebruary 2012, the Company introduced a new Multi Sense component to thezForce® technology that is intended to improve upon standard multi-touchprocesses.

In contrast to capacitive and resistive screens, which have microscopiccircuits embedded on a glass substrate, Neonode’s controller projects a grid ofinfrared light beams across the display layer. Importantly, the Company’stechnology is display agnostic and can be added to variety of display surfaces,including liquid-crystal display (LCD), eink, organic Light emitting diodes(OLED),and electronic paper displays (EPD). Touch is detected as a finger or objectinterrupts (by obstructing or reflecting) the light beams projected across the screen

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surface, which identifies the X and Y coordinates of the touch. As illustrated inFigure 11, there is no glass substrate or glass overlay required.

A plastic light guide is located under the bezel on top of the display. It servesto reflect and focus light are shown attached to a around the zForce® display. LEDsand photo diodes printed circuit board (PCB) display. The zForce Technologypulses an infrared light across the screen at a rate of up to 120 times a second so thegrid is continuously refreshed. As the user’s fingers move across the screen, thegrid’s coordinates where the screen is touched are converted into mathematicalalgorithms in a process that is unique to Neonode.

The newer and higher-cost capacitive technology, such as that used on AppleInc.’s (AAPL NASDAQ) iPhone, is activated by conductive material rather thanapplied pressure. Electrodes in the display contact with an electrical conductor, suchas a finger. Capacitive devices perform multi touch but cannot be activated bystandard pointers or gloves as these are nonconductive.. As a result, many users findthat their touchscreen can recognize taps from their fingers but not finger nails.

zTouch™ is a Force Based touch screen technology. One of the keyadvantages of force based touch screen technologies is that as the applied touchforce is used for determining the touch coordinates, the touch system will, and must,also accurately know the magnitude of the user's touch at any given moment oftime. The touch system output is therefore based on 3-variables; x- and y-coordinates and the "z-coordinate" (force level).

Many companies and organizations have explored the concept of force-basedtouch screen technologies over the last 30+ years, but few have been able to bringthe theoretical concepts or laboratory prototypes into working commercial products.Where others have failed, F-Origin has succeeded.

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F-Origin's earliest implementation was a 4" touch panel for a GSMSmartphone. This phone was in many ways ahead of its time, featuring motion andtouch control and a Java based OS, but was unfortunately only produced in a fewthousand units.

F-Origin has since further developed the zTouch™ touch screen product toallow for a broad range of product applications, such as POS and POI monitors,oversized touch monitors, indoor & outdoor kiosks, refrigerator and oven controlpanels, bezel and bezel-less designs and much more.

F-Origin's zTouch touch screen technology is built on three competenceareas; mechanical design, sensor technology, and software / algorithms. To ensurehigh accuracy, the force sensor must be extremely precise, linear and sensitive. F-Origin has jointly developed a piezo-resistive force sensor that meets theserequirements.

While the FFS force sensor capture the data and the mechanical designensures an optimal transfer of the touch force from the touch media (touch screen,touch panel) to the force sensors, it is the zTouch™ software and underlyingmathematical algorithms that ensures performance and accurate coordinatecalculation in the system. The firmware of the default zTouch™ implementationruns on STM32F101 and STM32F103 family of ST Micro MCUs, however, otherMCUs can be supported.

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The main tasks of the zTouch™ firmware are to record & filter the sensordata, optimize, compensate & calculate the touch coordinates, and to communicatethe touch coordinates.

Technology Diagram

The zTouch™ architecture is highly flexible and supports touch systems using atleast one (1), and up to eight (8) force sensors. The functional modules of thefirmware includes data filtering and data correction, initial coordinate calculation,zero moment calculation and auto calibration, motion compensation, touchthreshold determination and data export. Additional support functions, such as theinitialization function allows for certain values and thresholds to be set ormanipulated by user, or even the applications. For example the required force levelsfor a touch or a click. Specific end-user calibration module is currently notsupported as a standard configuration, although it can be if requested.

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FEATURES OF zFORCE TOUCHSCREEN

Support for any type of touch: User input is recorded independent ofwhat the user is touching the screen with, e.g., finger with or without glove,pen, stylus, credit card etc.

Durability: Touch surface/lens is as durable as the system/applicationrequires. No membrane to wear so routine cleaning procedures and materialscan be used without concern.

Environmental robustness: Moisture/dust resistance as well as theability to filter out and ignore weather and contaminants is another benefit ofthe design and positive impact to no membrane layer or bezel-based opticsand electronics. Bezel or Bezel-less designs are available.

Optical Performance: Optical performance is enhanced compared totypical surface-based touch systems because there is no surface membrane torestrict light transmission. Better clarity and light throughput enhancesviewing experience as well as potentially reducing backlighting therebysaving system energy usage as well.

Configurable force sensitivity levels: With most of the system’sintelligence resident in the software, it is simple to adjust force levels(sensitivity) for different users or applications. This is useful in setting theminimum pressure necessary to register a particular touch, gesture, or keypress. For example, a light touch may highlight or select a key, while aharder press could be required to record the key press.

Lens or touch surface design freedom: As long as the lens/touchsurface is rigid, any material may be selected. The shape of the surface couldalso be non-rectangular and it may even have 3-dimensional features ortopography such as raised or lowered areas for key orientation effects orBraille character support.

Gesture Support: The zTouch™ touch screen will register single points,such as key presses, as well as line drawings and gestures, making thissolution optimal for gesture inputs, drawing, and handwriting recognitionapplications.

Affordable: The zTouch™ technology is also very costeffective/competitive, especially for larger volumes, as the cost for uniquecomponents and sensors is comparatively low.

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WORKING PRINCIPLE OF ZFORCE

Infrared touch screen is a touch frame which is usually installed in front ofthe display screen. The frame is integrated with printed circuit board which containsa line of IR-LEDs and photo transistors hidden behind the bezel of the touch frame.Each of IR-LEDs and photo transistors is set on the opposite sides to create a grid ofinvisible infrared light. The bezel shields the parts from the operation environmentwhile allowing the IR beams to pass through.

The infrared Touch Screen controller sequentially pulses less to create a gridof IR light beams. When a user touches the screen ,enters the grid by a stylus whichcan interrupt the IR light beams, the photo transistors from x and Y axes detect theIR light beams which have been interrupted and transmit exact signals that identifythe X and Y axes coordinates to the host.

An array of infrared LEDs are used to track where fingers on the screen arethe drawback of this kind of technology is that a raised bezel is places around thescreen. This raised bezel houses an array of infrared LEDs and sensors. The newtechnology has already been licensed to companies to use this technology. Theswips company has noted that power consumption is as low as 1mw at 100hz.battery life of tablets devices will benefit from such a new type of touch screen. imsresponse times are quite possible with this new technology and there is little to nolag.

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ADVANTAGES

Long service life

Long battery life

Can be scaled to any size without losing resolution

scratch, breakage, and liquid resistance

Touch can be activated by anything including finger, gloved hand, or stylus.

Avoid accidental touch

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CONCLUSION

The possibilities are numerous and can be explored further in this technology that is

conceived and promoted by the company Neonode. Implementation of this technology into

practical use would be worth for economic making touchscreen scratch and liquid resistance and

we will proceed towards a better, faster technology. The concept of zForce technology is

currently attracting a great deal of interest, not least because it may offer a genuine and very

efficient alternative to o the r t r ad i t i ona l ou tda ted t ouchsc reens .

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REFERENCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonode

http://www.neonode.com/zforce/

www.ijcsmc.com/docs/papers/September2013/V2I9201321.pdf

www.prezi.com/wo2m0a9ne9n9/zforce-touch-screen

www.neonode.com

En.wikipedia.org/wiki/neonode

www.engadget.com/tag/neonode