Application Report

SLAA384A – February 2008 – Revised November 2010

4-Wire and 8-Wire Resistive Touch-Screen Controller

Using the MSP430™
Neal Brenner, Shawn Sullivan ................................................................. Microcontroller Field Applications
William Goh ........................................................................................................ MSP430 Applications

ABSTRACT
This application report describes how to use an MSP430™ microcontroller to drive and read a resistive
touch screen. The hardware and software solutions provided enable the reading of user input through a 4-
wire or 8-wire resistive touch screen with a low-cost low-power customizable microcontroller. The
reference design includes MSP430 software and hardware schematics along with a demonstration PC
application. The design was implemented using an MSP430F2012, but it can easily be modified to use
any other MSP430 with an ADC.

Contents
1 Principles of Operation ..................................................................................................... 2
2 MSP430 Implementation ................................................................................................... 5
3 Demonstration System ..................................................................................................... 9
4 References ................................................................................................................. 10

List of Figures
1 Touch Detection ............................................................................................................. 2
2 4-Wire Touch-Screen Construction ....................................................................................... 3
3 4-Wire Touch Coordinate Reading ....................................................................................... 3
4 8-Wire Touch-Screen Construction ....................................................................................... 4
5 8-Wire Touch Coordinate Reading ....................................................................................... 4
6 MSP430 Touch Detection Connections .................................................................................. 5
7 Schematic .................................................................................................................... 6
8 Software Flow Charts....................................................................................................... 7
9 Communication Format .................................................................................................... 8
10 Hardware Setup ............................................................................................................. 9
11 PC Software ................................................................................................................ 10

List of Tables
1 Resources Used ............................................................................................................ 5

MSP430 is a trademark of Texas Instruments.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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1 Principles of Operation

1.1 Resistive Touch-Screen Concept

A resistive touch screen is constructed with two transparent layers coated with a conductive material
stacked on top of each other. When pressure is applied by a finger or a stylus on the screen, the top layer
makes contact with the lower layer. When a voltage is applied across one of the layers, a voltage divider
is created. The coordinates of a touch can be found by applying a voltage across one layer in the Y
direction and reading the voltage created by the voltage divider to find the Y coordinate, and then applying
a voltage across the other layer in the X direction and reading the voltage created by the voltage divider to
find the X coordinate.

1.2 Detecting a Touch

To know if the coordinate readings are valid, there must be a way to detect whether the screen is being
touched or not. This can be done by applying a positive voltage (VCC) to Y+ through a pullup resistor and
applying ground to X–. The pullup resistor must be significantly larger than the total resistance of the touch
screen, which is usually a few hundred ohms. When there is no touch, Y+ is pulled up to the positive
voltage. When there is a touch, Y+ is pulled down to ground as shown in Figure 1. This voltage-level
change can be used to generate a pin-change interrupt.

No Touch VCC Touch VCC

Y+ High Y+ Low

X– X+ X– X+

Y– Y–

Figure 1. Touch Detection

2 4-Wire and 8-Wire Resistive Touch-Screen Controller Using the MSP430™ SLAA384A – February 2008 – Revised November 2010
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1.3 Reading a 4-Wire Screen

A 4-wire resistive touch screen is constructed as shown in Figure 2.
Transparent conductor
(bottom side)

Y+ X+

Conductive bars

X– Y–

Glass
Transparent conductor
(top side)

Figure 2. 4-Wire Touch-Screen Construction

The x and y coordinates of a touch on a 4-wire touch screen can be read in two steps. First, Y+ is driven
high, Y– is driven to ground, and the voltage at X+ is measured. The ratio of this measured voltage to the
drive voltage applied is equal to the ratio of the y coordinate to the height of the touch screen. The
y coordinate can be calculated as shown in Figure 3. The x coordinate can be similarly obtained by driving
X+ high, driving X– to ground, and measuring the voltage at Y+. The ratio of this measured voltage to the
drive voltage applied is equal to the ratio of the x coordinate to the width of the touch screen. This
measurement scheme is shown in Figure 3.
VX+ VY+
y= × heightscreen x= × widthscreen
VDrive VDrive

Y+ Read Y+

VDrive

X– X+
Read X+

Y–

Figure 3. 4-Wire Touch Coordinate Reading

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1.4 Reading an 8-Wire Screen

An 8-wire resistive touch screen is constructed as shown in Figure 4.

Transparent conductor Y+ sense

X+ drive
(bottom side)
X+ sense
Y+ drive
Conductive bars

Y– sense

X– drive Y– drive

X– sense Glass
Transparent conductor
(top side)

Figure 4. 8-Wire Touch-Screen Construction

In comparison to a 4-wire touch screen, an 8-wire touch screen adds sense wires to the end of each of
the conductive bars. This allows any voltage offset created by the wiring or drive circuitry to be calibrated
out during operation.
An 8-wire touch screen is calibrated by measuring voltage extremes on either coordinate. First, Y+ drive is
driven high and Y– drive is driven low. The corresponding voltages measured at Y+ sense and Y– sense
are denoted VYmax and VYmin. A similar procedure yields VXmax and VXmin. These are the maximum and
minimum possible voltages across each coordinate.
The coordinates of a touch on an 8-wire touch screen can be read by first driving Y+ drive high, driving Y–
drive to ground, and reading the voltage at X+ sense. Using the maximum and minimum results obtained
during calibration, the y coordinate can be calculated as shown in the equations in Figure 5. The x
coordinate can be obtained by driving X+ drive high, driving X– drive to ground, and reading the voltage at
Y+ sense. This process is shown in Figure 5.

VX+ – VYmin VY+ – VXmin

VYmax – VYmin VXmax – VXmin
y= × heightscreen x= × widthscreen
VDrive VDrive

VDrive

Y+ Read Read Read

Read Y+ sense X– sense Y+ sense X+ sense

VDrive

X– X+
Read X+ sense

Read Y– sense
Y–

Figure 5. 8-Wire Touch Coordinate Reading

4 4-Wire and 8-Wire Resistive Touch-Screen Controller Using the MSP430™ SLAA384A – February 2008 – Revised November 2010
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2 MSP430 Implementation

2.1 Solution Overview

Any MSP430 device with an ADC can be used as a precise, flexible, and low-power touch-screen
controller. This application report provides a hardware and software proposal based on the MSP430F20x2
to implement both a 4-wire and 8-wire touch-screen controller. Both solutions wait in LPM4 (~0.1 mA) for
the screen to be touched, and then transmit the coordinates of the touch over UART or I2C. When the
screen is no longer touched, the MSP430F20x2 is put back into LPM4. Table 1 shows the MSP430
resources used for each solution.

Table 1. Resources Used

Flash RAM
Touch Screen Communication GPIO Other
(bytes) (bytes)
4 wire UART 5 878 74 Two channels of ADC10, TACCR1
8 wire UART 9 1178 82 Four channels of ADC10, TACCR1
4 wire I2C 6 992 75 Two channels of ADC10, USI
8 wire I2C 10 1292 83 Four channels of ADC10, USI

2.2 Detecting a Touch With the MSP430

The MSP430 2xx devices have programmable internal pullup and pulldown resistors on all GPIO pins.
This feature can be used to detect a touch on the screen. The MSP430 GPIO pins connected to pins Y+
(Y+ drive for 8-wire screens) and X– (X– drive for 8-wire screens) from the touch screen are used. The X–
pin is set to output low. The Y+ pin is set to input with the internal pullup resistor enabled as shown in
Figure 6. The Y+ pin can be sampled to determine whether the screen is being pressed. If it is high, the
screen is not being pressed; if it is low, the screen is being pressed. A high-to-low port pin interrupt can
also be used to enable the MSP430 to sleep in LPM4 while waiting for a touch on the screen.

Y+

Px.a
X– X+
MSP430F2xx

Px.b

Y–

Figure 6. MSP430 Touch Detection Connections

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2.3 Hardware
The schematic for the demonstration hardware is shown in Figure 7. The demonstration hardware was
designed to interface to any of the Touch International (http://www.touchinternational.com/) 8-wire resistive
touch screens (TI-8 Touch).

Figure 7. Schematic

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2.4 Software
The software flow charts for the 4-wire and 8-wire software are shown in Figure 8.

4-Wire Touch Screen Flow 8-Wire Touch Screen Flow

Stop watchdog, Stop watchdog,

initialize pins and initialize pins and
ADC, calibrate ADC, calibrate
DCO for 1MHz DCO for 1MHz

Configure pins to Configure pins to

detect touch detect touch

Enable Y+ pin Enable Y+ pin

Screen No high to low Screen No high to low
touched? interrupt, touched? interrupt,
enter LPM4 enter LPM4

Yes Yes

Read first Read first

X and Y Y+ Pin Interrupt X and Y Y+ Pin Interrupt
coordinates coordinates

Transmit Transmit
Read second Coordinates Read second Coordinates
X and Y X and Y
coordinates coordinates

Yes Yes

Calculate the No Calculate the No

difference between Diff < 5? difference between Diff < 5?
both coordinates both coordinates

Read X and Y coordinates Read X and Y coordinates

Configure pins to function Calibrate min and function
read x coordinate max readings

Read x coordinate Return Configure pins to

read x coordinate Return

Configure pins to Calculate

Read y coordinate
read y coordinate Read x coordinate
calibrated
coordinates

Configure pins to
Read y coordinate
read y coordinate

Figure 8. Software Flow Charts

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2.4.1 Coordinate Reading

Once a touch is detected, the MSP430 reads the x and y coordinates of the touch. For 8-wire screens,
first the minimum and maximum x and y values are read to calibrate the screen.
To read the coordinates, the pins are configured as previously described to drive the X lines and set the Y
sense pin as analog ADC inputs. Four ADC conversions are taken and averaged together to obtain the x
coordinate reading. For 8-wire screens, this value is calibrated as previously described. The same process
is repeated to obtain the y coordinate.

2.4.2 Communication Details

After a touch coordinate is read, it is transmitted back to a host. The zip file associated with this document
has example code using master I2C or an 8N1 9600 baud UART. The Timer_A module is used to
implement the UART transmit function as described in Implementing a UART Function With Timer_A3
(SLAA078).
Each coordinate is sent in a packet of four bytes. The first byte is a synch/control byte. The MSB is always
1 to differentiate it from the data bytes. If the screen is still being touched, a value of 0xFF is sent as the
control byte to indicate that the data following is valid. If the screen is not still being touched, a value of
0x80 is sent to indicate that the data following is not valid, and this is the final pair of coordinates for the
touch. The 10-bit x and y coordinates are split and packed into three data bytes. The three MSBs of the x
and y are packed together in the first byte, and the seven LSBs of the x and y coordinates are sent in the
third and fourth, respectively. The communication format is shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Communication Format

8 4-Wire and 8-Wire Resistive Touch-Screen Controller Using the MSP430™ SLAA384A – February 2008 – Revised November 2010
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3 Demonstration System
To demonstrate the hardware and software solution proposed in this document, a PC application is
provided in the accompanying zip file. This section discusses how to setup and run the demonstration.

3.1 Hardware Setup

The demonstration software uses the RS232 port of a PC, so the 4-wire or 8-wire RS232 software must
be loaded into the hardware. At the beginning of the file named main.c, set the WIRES #define to match
the number of wires on your touch screen. The COMM #define must be set to UART. The configuration for
an 8-wire demonstration is:

// Define # of wires, 8 or 4 #define WIRES 8 // Define communication interface, I2C

or UART #define COMM UART

To enable RS232 communication on the board, five jumpers must be put in place as shown by the red
boxes in Figure 10. There should be no jumpers connected on the I2CEN header.

Figure 10. Hardware Setup

The touch screen should be connected to the TS header, and an RS232 cable should be connected
between the PC COM1 port and the RS232 connector on the board. Finally, the board should be powered
by 1.8 V to 3.6 V, either through the JTAG header or by a CR2032 battery on the back of the board.

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3.2 PC Software
The PC application is provided in the associated zip file. Run setup.exe to install the software. The setup
program may download and install additional components required by the software. Once the proper
software is loaded on the board and the hardware is configured as previously described, launch the PC
software that was just installed called Touch-Screen Reader. A window similar to the one shown in
Figure 11 appears.

Figure 11. PC Software

The PC software opens COM1 and a connection to the board. As you touch the touch screen, the
software draws the points you touch, and the coordinate of the last point are displayed in the text box at
the bottom of the application. The Clear Display button at the bottom of the application clears the previous
points drawn in the window.

4 References
1. MSP430x20x1, MSP430x20x2, MSP430x20x3 data sheet (SLAS491)
2. MSP430x2xx Family User’s Guide (SLAU144)
3. Implementing a UART Function With Timer_A3 (SLAA078)

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Revision History

Changes from Original (February 2008) to A Revision .................................................................................................. Page

• Updated values in Flash and RAM columns in Table 1 ............................................................................. 5

• Updated Figure 8 ......................................................................................................................... 7

NOTE: Page numbers for previous revisions may differ from page numbers in the current version.

SLAA384A – February 2008 – Revised November 2010 Revision History 11

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