Will your next phone have a touchpad that acts as an NFC antenna?

Touchpad that acts as an NFC antenna in your next phone anyone? Cirque just perfected and patented it.

Cirque has just released a new touchpad that also houses an NFC antenna. This interesting development comes after a breakthrough which circumvented an issue of touchpads and NFC antennas affecting each other. Apparently, the combination of touch and near field communications operation has traditionally been problematic because both systems can interfere with one another. In creating a product that not only best solves the problem, but that also saves space within an NFC phone, NFC tablet or NFC laptop, Cirque has just carved out a new niche that will likely be desirable to OEMs.

In NFC phones, the NFC antenna is generally placed on the back of the device, usually near the battery casing or even on the back cover. It has thus far been an industrial design issue to ensure the NFC antenna has close proximity to the exterior of the NFC phone. The same issue would apply to NFC tablets and NFC laptops. The ingenious new technology that Cirque has now developed not only allows for the NFC antenna to be housed in the screen but allows both touch and NFC functions to be used at the same time.

“So many devices combine touch and NFC”, says Douglas Moore, Vice President of Cirque Input Solutions, “it is ideal to combine both technologies, which we can now do thanks to our patented methods.”

What kinds of devices can use the Cirque GlidePoint trackpads and GlideTouch touch panels that contain NFC antennas?

The touchpad screen is an obvious place to house an NFC antenna because of its proximity to the exterior of the phone and is a component which most phones have. By using the screen as an NFC antenna and by combining NFC operation with touch sensing, the company feels that Cirque solutions greatly simplify the addition of NFC to a wide variety of products. Cirque sees the technology being used in more than just phones and foresees demand in:

•     Notebook computers
•     Payment terminals
•     Tablets and mobile phones
•     Keyboards and PC peripherals
•     Medical devices
•     Industrial controls and more

It makes a lot of sense that POS terminals would be on the list. With the expected explosion of NFC payments, the ability to have an NFC antenna housed within a touchpad may get rid of industrial design issues that have so far plagued getting NFC phones to market. Check out the video below to see the touchpad that houses an NFC antenna in action.