First smartphone with virtual edge keys and gestures uses Atmel touchscreen controller

Atmel announced that the company is powering the borderless nubia Z9 smartphone with its award-winning maXTouch T-series touchscreen solution. In today's smartphone market, next-generation industrial designs and new display technologies are key differentiating factors that OEMs require to set their designs apart from their competition. Atmel's proprietary single-layer pattern brings a true borderless and futuristic industrial design for tomorrow's handsets. The maXTouch mXT336T delivers these features, along with advanced algorithms and Atmel's adaptive sensing technology to enable virtual edge keys and sliders-delivering interaction all the way to the edge of the phone. These features enable OEMs to develop new UI concepts, revolutionizing the way users interact with their smartphones. Atmel's mXT336T supports up to 10 touches with wake-up gesture libraries and best in-class calibration recovery to enable robust touch performance and excellent noise immunity for today's after-market chargers in extremely noisy environments. "Atmel's single-layer on-cell solution is the first in the industry to truly deliver unprecedented touch performance through patented sensor designs and innovative software algorithms," said Binay Bajaj, senior director of touch marketing, Atmel. "The borderless nubia Z9 design is a testament to our dedicated engineering team to provide the best human interface solution on mobile devices. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration with nubia and teaming together on more products with sleek, innovative designs using Atmel maXTouch solutions." As the demand for display integrated touch solutions continue to accelerate worldwide, Atmel is committed to bringing a broader range of maXTouch products with high touch performance. "We selected Atmel's innovative single-layer on-cell maXTouch solution to enable our first borderless smartphone design," said Ni Fei, CEO of the nubia brand. "Atmel's adaptive sensing and edge-sensing technology enable the innovative edge keys and gestures in our flagship nubia handset. We are thrilled to team with Atmel and look forward to delivering more unique smart phones with excellent touch performance using maXTouch solutions." To simplify the design process and to accelerate development time, the new maXTouch products come with support from Atmel's world-class engineering team and are supported by the maXTouch Studio tool suite. These tools enable designers to bring their smart devices faster time-to-market, says the company.