What’s called as a haptic technology, or haptics is a tactile feedback technology that allows people to interact with machines through a sense of touch. It has been around for a while, adding tactile sensations to gizmos like mobile phones and game machines.  

Since it was first incorporated in Samsung Electronics’ Anycall Haptic mobile phone product line-up, the haptic technology has become a most common feature of every mobile phone, or smartphone,  generating a series of vibration that tell users their mobile phones are ringing up.    

Yet, advances in the haptic vibration technology are opening up a brave new world, allowing users to feel as if they are touching on real things. Imagine you and your wife sitting on a beach playing a virtual piano on a tablet PC, for example. Or, how about playing a virtual guitar with strings that feel real?  The evolution in the haptic tactile technology will enable to you to feel a texture on a touch screen as if you press down real keys, or pluck strings for real.               

Core River Semiconductor Co., Ltd. of Korea is among a growing list of IT software and hardware start-ups, who are scrambling to ply open wider the door to the ‘wonder world’ of the tactile technology. The Korean fabless microcontroller chip maker licensed haptic software from Immersion Corporation of Canada and then had combined it with its home-grown indigenous auto-calibration IP to commercialize a ‘Super Haptic’ controller IC.

The software algorithm of Immersion Corporation is preloaded in most of smartphones from the likes of Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Nokia to control and work together with a microcontroller chip to vibrate a built-in linear actuator or micro-motor.

What makes differences with other motor controller IC chip is that the Super Haptic controller IC of Core River can boost up the vibration effects of the linear motor by as much as 40%, making phones users to feel tactile sensations more vividly.

Brave new world

Its built-in auto-calibration algorithm makes such technological wonders, enabling the controller IC to scan among a variety of operating frequencies to find the most optimal one, on which the liner motor can work the best. And then, the Super-haptic controller IC tells a host CPU to command the motor to work on the most optimal operating frequency, which can enable it to generate the most powerful vibration effect.

The theory is straightforward. When all of linear motors roll off a factory line, for example, they are artificially set to operate on a frequency of 175Hz by a margin of  plus and minus 2 , -the reference operating frequency that the industry thinks the linear motor vibrates in the most powerful way. 

As time goes by, however, their preset frequencies start to get wide of the mark, increasingly deteriorating below the reference frequencies, mainly affected by signal noise interferences on the system board.

In far worse cases, just fresh out of the factory floors, some of the linear motors already get off the reference frequency range by a bigger margin than originally optimized.

Unfortunately, however, almost all of the motor controller ICs have so far ignored the deteriorations and the wider margins in their frequencies, just telling the host CPU to send back an operation command to vibrate the linear micro-motor at the reference frequency of 170 Hz The gap translates into losses of vibration power, making it difficult to feel the tactical effects than ever before.

Yet, our Super haptic IC is intelligent enough to fine-tune the motor to the changes in the frequency. If the most optimal frequency of a haptic linear motor moves out of the reference frequency to work its way into a frequency of 180Hz, for example, our Super-haptic IC controller chip can tell a host CPU to command it to operate at the newly found frequency.  That’s the best way that the motor works at full capacity.     

Boost tactile sensations by 40%   

Technology breakthroughs are opening up new market opportunities. As smartphone screens get bigger and bigger, going beyond 5 inches, it gets more frequent to miss out on vibration signals when you put your smartphone on a silent mode. That’s where Core River’s Super-haptic controller IC prevails over other controller ICs.

Applications don’t stop there. The Super-haptic controller IC can also be used with what’s called augmented reality, or AR apps to allow smartphone users to visit virtual safaris in Africa and then touch virtual lions’ manes as if they caress them for real.    

Indeed, the new wave of hatpics might give more tactile sensations to gadgetry, enabling users to feel textures on a screen. For example, it will let people doing an online shopping actually sense the ridges of corduroy pants or the textures of a flannel shirt. Going beyond, that enables users to feel even slightly different tactile sensations, or staircases of each of 10 fingers when they play a virtual piano on a touch screen.        

The commercial success of the Super-haptic linear controller IC chips is important to our future, as we are a desperate need for an international credit for its technological prowess. Especially, as Core River places a high-stakes bet on more lucrative touch screen controller IC market for its long-term prosperity, the compny hopes it would provide a turningpoint for makin it to the market.    

Core River started out in 2005 as a venture start-up. The chipmaker has been thriving on sales of touch key controller ICs that control touch keys on monitors, flat panel TVs, and TV remote controllers to enable users to turn up and down channel, or volume.

As the chipmaker has been mainly supplying Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics –the   world’s No.1 and No. 2 flat screen TV makers – Core River quickly rose on top, outselling market leader Cypress Semiconductor in terms of unit shipments of touch key controller ICs.

Feel for real on every 10 fingers

While touch key controller market is relatively less competitive and less lucrative, however, the touch screen market is where technology bellwethers such as Cypress Semiconductor, Synaptics Inc. and Atmel Corporation of the U.S. reign supreme. But, that is also where corporate names and brands matter as much as technology breakthroughs.

Although Core River has successfully developed a series of cutting-edge touch screen controller ICs, the chipmaker has kept a low profile in global microcontroller market, so far.

For example, the chipmaker got a couple of design-wins of its touch screen controller ICs from foreign mobile phone makers like NEC-Casio Mobile and CEC Philips Electronics. Highlighting the deals was its design-in of TouchCore 300 series of multi-touch controller ICs for NEC-Casio’s deep water-proof mobile phones, which were released through U.S. mobile service carrier Verizon Communications.         

Yet, the chipmaker needs more of high-profile deals. Once it hit a deal with such household names as Samsung Electronics and LG electronics to supply the Super-haptics motor controller ICs Core River expects it would give a much-needed acclaim for its touch screen controller ICs –a stepping-stone for the company to carve out niches in the global touch screen market.

The latest and the most advanced of its TouchCore series of microcontroller ICs for capacitive  multi-touch screens is TouchCore 500 series that can control and drive a touch screen of up to 7 inches with one single chip solution, recognizing simultaneous touches of 10 fingers. Its TouchCore 400 series can also support an upward of 20 fingers’ simultaneous touches, allowing two users to face each other and play together two virtual pianos on a single tablet PC or smartphone screen.