Dynamic on-demand joint processing of touch sensor data from multiple independent touch sensors at an electronic circuit

A computing system, comprising:

• an electronic circuit, comprising:
• one or more timed general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins;
• and
• a controller;
• a plurality of touch sensor integrated circuits (ICs) that are each separately coupled to the electronic circuit with no peer-to-peer communication between the plurality of touch sensor ICs;
• and
• a plurality of touch sensors that are communicatively coupled to the touch sensor ICs,
• wherein the controller in the electronic circuit is operable to:
• assign the one or more timed GPIO pins to a first touch sensor IC and a second touch sensor IC;
• receive a first touch sensor data pulse from the first touch sensor IC and a second touch sensor data pulse from the second touch sensor IC, respectively, as input data pulses using the assigned one or more timed GPIO pins when the assigned timed GPIO pins are configured to operate in an input mode in relation to the electronic circuit, wherein the assigned one or more timed GPIOs function to time synchronize the first touch sensor data pulse with the second touch sensor data pulse;
• determine that a time synchronization drift between the first touch sensor IC and the second touch sensor IC exceeds a defined threshold based on a value in a time capture register for each timed GPIO pin;
• and
• send a feedback message to one or more of the first touch sensor IC or the second touch sensor IC to adjust a timing to achieve time synchronization alignment between the first touch sensor IC and the second touch sensor;
• combine the touch sensor data pulses received time synchronously from each of the plurality of touch sensor ICs;
• process the combined touch sensor data pulses to produce processed touch sensor data;
• and
• communicate the processed touch sensor data for the plurality of touch sensor ICs to an application executing on the computing system.

A method of making a computing system operable to process time synchronized touch sensor data, the method comprising:

• providing an electronic circuit that includes one or more timed general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins and a controller;
• communicatively coupling the electronic circuit to a plurality of touch sensor integrated circuits (ICs), wherein each of the plurality of touch sensor ICs are separately coupled to the electronic circuit with no peer-to-peer communication between the plurality of touch sensor ICs;
• communicatively coupling the plurality of touch sensor ICs to a plurality of touch sensors;
• configuring the controller in the electronic circuit with logic to:
• assign the one or more timed GPIO pins to a first touch sensor IC and a second touch sensor IC;
• receive a first touch sensor data pulse from the first touch sensor IC and a second touch sensor data pulse from the second touch sensor IC, respectively, as input data pulses using the assigned one or more timed GPIO pins when the assigned timed GPIO pins are configured to operate in an input mode in relation to the electronic circuit, wherein the assigned one or more timed GPIOs function to time synchronize the first touch sensor data pulse with the second touch sensor data pulse;
• determine that a time synchronization drift between the first touch sensor IC and the second touch sensor IC exceeds a defined threshold based on a value in a time capture register for each timed GPIO pin;
• and
• send a feedback message to one or more of the first touch sensor IC or the second touch sensor IC to adjust a timing to achieve time synchronization alignment between the first touch sensor IC and the second touch sensor;
• combine the touch sensor data pulses received time synchronously from each of the plurality of touch sensor ICs to produce joint touch sensor data;
• and
• perform joint processing of the joint touch sensor data.

At least one non-transitory machine readable storage medium having instructions embodied thereon for time synchronizing touch sensor data pulses from a plurality of touch sensor integrated circuits (ICs), each separately coupled to an electronic circuit using one or more timed general purpose input/output pins (GPIO) with no peer-to-peer communication between the plurality of touch sensor ICs, the instructions when executed by the electronic circuit perform the following:

• assigning the one or more timed GPIO pins to a first touch sensor IC and a second touch sensor IC;
• receiving a first touch sensor data pulse from the first touch sensor IC and a second touch sensor data pulse from the second touch sensor IC, respectively, as input data pulses using the assigned one or more timed GPIO pins when the assigned timed GPIO pins are configured to operate in an input mode in relation to the electronic circuit, wherein the assigned one or more timed GPIOs function to time synchronize the first touch sensor data pulse with the second touch sensor data pulse;
• determining that a time synchronization drift between the first touch sensor IC and the second touch sensor IC exceeds a defined threshold based on a value in a time capture register for each timed GPIO pin;
• sending a feedback message to one or more of the first touch sensor IC or the second touch sensor IC to adjust a timing to achieve time synchronization alignment between the first touch sensor IC and the second touch sensor;
• combining, at the electronic circuit, the touch sensor data pulses received time synchronously from each of the plurality of touch sensor ICs;
• processing, at the electronic circuit, the combined touch sensor data pulses to produce processed touch sensor data;
• and
• communicating, from the electronic circuit, the processed touch sensor data for the plurality of touch sensor ICs to an application executing on a computing system.