Capacitive Keyboard with Enhanced Electrode Areas

Abstract

A touch sensitive capacitive keypad (200) is provided that multiple electrodes (201-210) and associated wire connectors (220-229) formed under a touch panel in a single layer of conductive material, where the electrodes (201-210) are arrayed in relation to a keypad to form unique combinations of two electrodes per key, where each electrode is shared with only immediately adjacent keys. The electrodes are sized and arranged so that a first electrode (e.g., electrode E4 205) associated with a given key (e.g., the “5” key) is sized and arranged so that it is shared by only surrounding keys (e.g., the “4,” “7,” and “8” keys), while a second electrode (e.g., electrode E3 204) associated with the given key (e.g., the “5” key) is sized and arranged so that it is shared by only surrounding keys (e.g., the “2,” “3” and “6” keys). As a result, the area for each capacitive electrode is at least twice the area of a given key.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.