Short Range Wireless
The smart way to connect Human Interface devices
Paul Williamson describes CSR’s new wafer-thin touch-surface keyboard prototype that uses low-energy Bluetooth Smart for dongle-free connectivity to machines running Windows 8 or OS X Mavericks
connectivity but it would be less than one millimetre thick, bendable and cheap to produce in volume. OEMs would be seriously interested.
CSR’s Bluetooth Smart ultra-thin touch-surface keyboard E
arly September 2013, CSR carefully took the bubble-wrap off the company’s prototype Bluetooth Smart
keyboard. This was no ordinary QWERTY keyboard. A slick video about this impressive new prototype – “the world’s thinnest keyboard” – went viral on the WWW and notched up over 100k views on YouTube within a week.
The smartphone/tablet obsessed masses
were intrigued. Not only was this wireless keyboard design ultra-thin, fly-weight and flexible, but it was touch-sensitive like the multi-touch screen on a smartphone. And thanks to µEnergy, CSR’s chip technology for Bluetooth Smart – version 4.0 of the ubiquitous short-range wireless connectivity standard – the wireless connection sips power enabling smaller
10 November 2013
batteries and longer periods between charges. Finally, with a touch-response latency of less than 12mS, this particular wireless keyboard could please the speediest of touch typists. So what’s going right here? How did
this prototype design come into being? Back in the Spring of this year, the Low Power Wireless group at CSR’s UK headquarters wanted a compelling HID demonstrator for its powerful new CSR1010 chip, the company’s latest “single-mode” Bluetooth Smart solution with on-chip microprocessor, 64kB RAM, 64kB ROM and a wealth of I/O. This chip, with the lowest power consumption in its class – drawing <900nA in dormant mode – is the latest addition to CSR’s µEnergy product family. Like its
Components in Electronics
sibling semiconductors, the CSR1010 was architected with several killer applications in mind: wireless keyboards and mice; radio-based TV/STB remote controls; “wearables” from smart watches to health & fitness monitoring sensors; and the great diversity of “App-cessories”, from out-of- proximity tags (like the “hipKey” smart fob from hippih, pictured opposite) for wirelessly tethering valuables, to temperature-humidity-barometric pressure sensors, and ultrasonic rulers. So in need of a Bluetooth Smart
keyboard demo that pushed every boundary, CSR turned to Cambridge Inkjet Technology, a local pioneer in printed flexible circuit manufacturing. Not only would CSR’s touch-surface keyboard sport the benefits of Bluetooth Smart
Wireless keyboards Let’s take a poke at today’s wireless keyboards. Most of these electro- mechanical HID’s have moving keys, so they need depth. They are hard on batteries and need a companion receiver dongle. They typically don’t respond to multi-touch gestures such as pinches and swipes – the naturalistic user experience delivered by today’s finger-friendly smartphones, tablets and e-Readers. In conclusion: there is room for some disruptive thinking on product re-design. Wireless keyboards, for example, those compatible with Windows, MacOS and Android computers, mainly incorporate a proprietary short-range wireless technology operating in one of the ISM bands. (That’s usually the 2.4GHz allocation, in common with the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi standards). These proprietary wireless keyboards require a receiver accessory in the format of a USB dongle to be plugged into a spare port of the laptop, tablet, or desktop. But Bluetooth Smart, thanks to its meagre power requirements and the growing prevalence of Bluetooth Smart Ready hosts (which eliminates the need for add-on dongles), has the real potential to change the game and drive out proprietary solutions.
So how do you make an ultra-thin touch-surface keyboard with Bluetooth Smart baked in? And how do you make it multi-touch friendly? Answer: with the help of conductive inkjet printing techniques and touch controller IC technology. Enter Conductive Inkjet Technology (CIT) and Atmel.
Wafer-thin touch-surface Do you remember how to home-brew a one-off printed circuit board (PCB)? Typically, a pen charged with etch-resistant ink is used to trace out what become the conducting tracks on an insulating board thinly laminated with copper. The whole board is then bathed in a solution of ferric chloride. After a spell this acid solution strips away the unwanted copper leaving
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