Multimedia touch screen specialist MicroTouch Systems Inc of Methuen, Massachusetts has announced its robust touchscreen technology, ToughTouch, a month after its main competitor introduced its own durable touchscreen offering. MicroTouch’s ToughTouch is designed for public access systems where it is neccessary to stand up to harsh environments and withstand impacts and damage that would disable the ordinary touchscreen, such as Automatic Teller Machine applications, ticketing machines and interactive payphones. MicroTouch competitior, Elo TouchSystems Inc, introduced its own offering SecureTouch aimed at similar applications in January. The two companies do use different touchscreen technologies, however. MicroTouch mainly uses capacitive sensor technology that works by coating the touchscreen glass in metallic oxide that acts as a resistor. The user’s body acts as a natural capacitor so the user’s touch can draw a current that is sensed by the system, whereas Elo TouchSystems uses surface-wave technology in which a sound wave sent over the glass, which is interupted and sensed when the user touches the screen. The touchscreen market remains a niche sector, worth $450m worldwide. Around 42% of sales are in the industrial sector, such as in factory control systems and test and measurement applications, while 19% of product sells to the point of information market, which includes point of information systems. The point of sale market is 18% of the total, 11% for medical applications and 7% for gaming applications. Fremont, California based Elo TouchSystems a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raychem Corp.
