ITO Touch is a division of Diamond Coatings Inc, the leading manufacturer and supplier of resistive and capacitive touch displays and touchscreens, interior lighting solutions and Intuitive automotive lighting systems.
ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) has become one of the most commonly used transparent conducting oxides, with applications in a range of areas and industries. The most common use of ITO coatings is in touchscreen technology for smartphones, tablets and other electrical appliances.
So how do touchscreens work?
There are two types of touchscreen out there, but only one uses ITO – the other type, the ‘resistive’ screen which you can write on with any old stick, are just sophisticated switches. When you poke the screen, it deforms slightly and touches a conductive layer behind it, allowing a current to flow. The screen knows where that current has been generated and responds accordingly.
ITO Touch Screen Technology
Screens with ITO are known as capacitive touch screens, and work in a different way: there are conductive wires under the screen, carrying charges.
Touching the ITO screen with anything that can carry an electrical charge – like your finger – interrupts the flow of current, and another set of wires running perpendicular to the conductive ones sense the disruption. They send the feedback to the device to let it know where on the screen you’re touching.
ITO touchscreens, rather than the deforming type, are able to sense multiple points of contact, which gives rise to the pinching and swiping we are all now so familiar with.
Because capacitive touch screens require a charge-carrying pointer, you won’t be able to use an insulator as a stylus. Just wearing gloves is enough to block the charge from passing into your finger, frustrating your ability to use your phone in cold weather. Luckily, all it takes is a conductor, so you can now get specialised pointers and gloves with conductive thread sewn into the fingertips, so you can still swipe in the snow.
It is this combination of properties – transparent in the right frequency range and with just enough electrical conductivity – that makes ITO perfect for the job. It allows you to see what the tiny LEDs behind the touch screen are showing you, and to tell your device what to do with a fingertip dance of taps, pinches and swipes.
Touchscreen Supplier
We can produce touch screens in any desired size (up to a maximum of 100 cm by 100 cm) on either glass, rigid or flexible plastic and provide ready-to-use, X-Y resistive touch screens complete with all necessary:
- Bonding, connections & patterning
- Chips to drive them
Our company was recently awarded as the winner of the ‘Best ITO & Optical Coatings Company 2019’ award by Corporate Vision Magazine (CVM), at the Business Innovation Awards.
This recognition was due to the innovation, research and commitment we have for supplying and manufacturing the highest quality coatings and products to our customers, as well as working closely to design and meet specifications for a vast array of applications. The technology and machinery we use is state of the art. As a company, we strive for improvement constantly, which has resulted in many advancements in this technology.
To learn more about our capacitive and resistive displays and touchscreens, call us on (480) 999-3456 or contact: sales@diamondcoatings.com