3D force sensing enables true edge-to-edge mobile displays

The latest trend within mobile handset design is to extend the screen to the very edge of the case, even curving around to the side, to maximise the useable display area.

While technologies like flexible OLED displays can support this, it presents challenges for designers who need to incorporate legacy features such as the home button into ever-smaller spaces.



Now Peratech aims to improve Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) with its latest technology demonstrator, showing how Quantum Tunnelling Composite (QTC) force sensing can accelerate the evolution of mobile phones.

Peratech’s QTC technology enables a home button based on force sensing to be fully integrated below the glass screen of the phone, without the need for a bezel of any kind.

This provides the perfect solution for including a home button that offers users an important positive force action, but without taking up any of the phone’s displayable area.

“Many consumers still like to have a home button on the front of the phone, putting pressure on designers to integrate some form of electro-mechanical solution,” said Jon Stark, Peratech‘s CEO. “But we can show that by moving to a force-sensing solution, the home button can remain on the front of the phone without taking up any additional space. It could allow the bezel to be removed entirely, without compromising the user experience.”

Capacitive sensing alone is unable to deliver that realistic home button experience and is also prone to false triggering.

Combining capacitive and force sensing eliminates false triggering and also supports new design paradigms such as the finger print sensor becoming the power button. QTC technology enables this entirely new approach to handset design, giving the best possible user experience.