Yorkshire-based conductive polymer firm Peratech has won a $1.4m contract to add a third touch dimension to phone screens.
The deal gives touch screen maker Nissa exclusive worldwide rights to use quantum tunnelling composites (QTCs), for screens smaller than 90x140mm, for an initial period of 1 year.
"This is Peratech's first million dollar licensing agreement and is a huge testament to the power and potential of QTC technology by one of the world's leading manufacturers of touch screens for mobile phones and gaming consoles," said Philip Taysom, joint CEO of Peratech.
"QTC is also ideal for creating solutions for larger touch screens and we are actively investigating this market."
In the Nissa case, pellets of QTC will be embedded within the bond that attaches the display to its housing. Operation is completely independent of other touch technology used on the display.
"It goes around the display, 20µm thick, eight or 10 dots per side," Taysom told Electronics Weekly. "It only needs 1-2µm of movement."
Applications for a third - pressure - dimensions to a touch screen are up to the phone maker, said Taysom, although he pointed out, for example, that the speed of scrolling through a long list could be modulated by how firmly a touch screen is touched.
"Using products with an embedded QTC switch consumers could use this third dimension to search deeper into a file structure simply by pressing harder, control an avatar's movement through a game more naturally or create the thin or thick lines which are vital for Far East characters," said Peratech's other CEO Chris Lussey.
According to Taysom, phones incorporating the technology will be on the shelves in Japan this quarter.
QTC was a commercial invention, which was then developed by the University of Durham, where there is still a QTC team.
“We are unusual in that we are a university spin-in,” said Taysom.
Although QTC is a particle-loaded polymer, it differs from similar pressure-sensitive materials, claims the firm, in that increased electron tunnelling between particles is responsible for its force/resistance change rather than increased physical contact between particles.
“QTC’s properties enable it to be made into force sensitive switches of any shape or size,” said Peratech. “QTC switches and switch matrices can be screen printed.”
For low-current operation, the material can also be engineered to have no connection at zero pressure.
Until 2006, Peratech was both making QTC inks and polymers, and making products from them.
In that year it stopped making products and changed its business model to licensing its intellectual property to other product makers, such as Nissa, while continuing to make the inks and polymers.
Along the way it acquired two other brands, both in textile-based control for clothing: SoftSwitch and Eleksen.
SoftSwitch used a fabric version of QTC, already had close ties with Peratech, and may re-emerge as a Peratech brand for control products.
Eleksen was a competitor with its own technology which was successfully designed into clothing to implement controls for media players.
However, Eleksen got into financial difficulties and Peratech bought the remnants of the firm. "it was expensive and not waterproof, and costly to make waterproof," said Taysom.
Eleksen is now owned by Peratech and markets ElekTex, a fabric switching technology that combines fabric QTC, which is inherently waterproof, said Taysom, with some original Eleksen technology.
The intellectual property and design rights for the electronics and textile touch pads of Eleksen and for the manufacture and sale of ElekTex textile is now exclusively licensed to QIO Systems which was founded by two employees of the original Eleksen, and in which Peratech has a shareholding