Apple granted solar power patent for mobile devices
Apple's patent "Integrated touch sensor and solar assembly" filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office has been granted.
The invention relates to integrated touch sensor and solar panel configurations that may be used on portable devices, particularly handheld portable devices such as a media players or phones.
Implications of this are that solar power could in the future may be used to power future generations of Apple iPhones, iPods and iPads.
The invention relates to touch sensors and solar cells, and more particularly, to integrated touch sensor array and solar cell stack-ups in which the same electrodes are used for collecting solar energy and for touch sensing.
Many types of input devices are presently available for performing operations in a computing system, such as buttons or keys, mice, trackballs, touch panels, joysticks, touch screens and the like. Touch screens, in particular, are becoming increasingly popular because of their ease and versatility of operation as well as their declining price.
Touch screens can include a touch panel, which can be a clear panel with a touch-sensitive surface. The touch panel can be positioned in front of a display screen so that the touch-sensitive surface covers the viewable area of the display screen.
Touch screens can allow a user to make selections and move a cursor by simply touching the display screen via a finger or stylus. In general, the touch screen can recognise the touch and position of the touch on the display screen, and the computing system can interpret the touch and thereafter perform an action based on the touch event (the touching of fingers or other objects upon a touch-sensitive surface).
The integrated touch sensor array and solar cell stack-ups may include electrodes that are used both for collecting solar energy and for sensing on a touch sensor array. By integrating both the touch sensors and the solar cell layers into the same stack-up, surface area on the portable device may be conserved.
The patent also stipulates that the integrated touch sensor and solar panel configurations may be used for optical sensing. This means although the solar panel may operate in a solar power and optical sensing mode, when detecting an approaching object, such as a finger, the solar panel can switch to a capacitive sensing mode.
