Atmel announced version 3.0 of the royalty-free Atmel QTouch software library with up to 64 channels of touch support for all Atmel AVR microcontrollers (MCUs) and select 32-bit AVR32 UC3. The QTouch library also supports charge transfer signal acquisition technology for robust sensing on the AVR and AVR32 MCUs. This technology allows QTouch to outperform other capacitive touch sensitive acquisition methods in electrostatic discharge (ESD) and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), overlay thickness and signal-to-noise ratio. The QTouch library, combined with Atmel's AVR development tools, can now provide a path to a reliable, touch interface for the designers.

The library consists of pre-compiled object code binaries which can be configured individually as touch keys or combined in groups to form sliders or navigation functionality. The Library also allows full user customization and optimization of the touch function. The precompiled software libraries come with a defined application programming interface (API) that ensures integration with the customer code and is suited for applications requiring a limited number of touch channels. It also offers a solution for customers who want to embed touch functionality in their existing AVR microcontroller designs. The QTouch library is available now and can be downloaded from the touch software product page.