NVIDIA Corporation
Selective touch sensor activation for power savings

Abstract:

Almost all mobile devices, such as cell phones, tablets, laptops, etc., have touch sensors that enable a user of the device to control various aspects of the device through a touch screen. The touch screen is comprised of a touchable surface and numerous touch sensors positioned across the surface to sense which portion of the surface has been touched by the user. With current touch sensor technology, a touch controller of the device will perform a periodic scan, at some rate, of all of the touch sensors in order to determine which touch sensors have sensed a touch by the user. The present disclosure provides selective activation of the touch sensors for portions of a graphical user interface (GUI) determined to have user-selectable input elements, for providing power savings on the mobile device.