Capacitive Touch Solutions for Buttons, Sliders, Wheels and Proximity
Turnkey Capacitive Touch Controllers and Microcontrollers with On-Chip Touch Peripherals
It’s time to add capacitive touch to the user interface in your next product. We offer two easy-to-implement options for creating buttons, sliders and wheels or enabling proximity detection that will enhance your product’s user experience. With devices that support up to 64 buttons, our easy-to-configure turnkey touch controllers streamline the process of replacing mechanical buttons in your product. Or, you can choose one of our microcontrollers (MCUs) with dedicated Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs), which offload the touch functionality from the Central Processing Unit (CPU) to free up system resources and reduce power consumption. Like our turnkey devices, these MCUs support both mutual- and self-capacitance measurements.
Where Can You Use Touch?
- Control panels on cooktops, ovens, washers and other household appliances
- Liquid level sensing in tanks and other containers
- Touch on metal in waterproof and/or vandalism-proof designs
- Media and audio controls on headphones and ear buds
- Presence detection in earphones/earbuds, self-lacing shoes and other advanced consumer products
- Medical device controls without openings for easy cleaning and disinfection
- Hands on Detection (HoD) and other safety features using buttons, sliders, wheels and touchpads on steering wheels
- Proximity detection in car door handles to lock and unlock a car
- Proximity detection to implement automotive backlighting
Two Technology Platforms for Your Design
We offer two easy-to-implement options for creating buttons, sliders and wheels or enabling proximity detection that will enhance your product’s user experience:
Microcontrollers with On-Chip Touch
Many of our 8- and 32-bit MCUs feature on-chip touch sensing hardware available as a CIP. These peripherals enable capacitive touch at no extra cost since you will need at least one MCU for your design anyway. Touch is easily integrated with your application code. It doesn’t matter whether your code is 4 KB or 1 MB in size. We have a variety of MCUs that can handle a capacitive touch interface in addition to everything else you need done.

- Wide range of 8-, 16- and 32-bit MCUs with dedicated on-chip touch peripherals
- Touch library, code configurators and software tools to customize your application
Turnkey Touch Controllers
These application-specific devices require no programming. Just connect one to your touch sensor and the host MCU of your choice to provide high-quality, hassle-free touch right out of the box. Use one of our MCUs and generate the host communication firmware with our code configurators to make your system bring-up even faster and simpler.

- Ready-to-use solutions with dedicated touch functionality
- No programming expertise needed
- Fastest and easiest way to upgrade to touch
These robust and proven solutions offer reliable performance in even the most challenging applications and support capacitive touch on glass, plastics and wood. We also offer Metal over Capacitive (MoC) support for touch-on-metal surfaces. If your design needs to function in a wet or outdoor environment, you can use our products and touch libraries for MCUs to create water-tolerant or waterproof keypads and other interfaces. They can even support touch through gloved fingers.
Selecting a Technology Platform
Touch Feature | Turnkey Touch Controllers | PIC®/AVR®/SAM MCU Plus Touch Library |
---|---|---|
No coding required | ● | |
Buttons/slider/wheel/proximity support | ● | ● |
Number of buttons | 64 | 100+ |
2D touchpad support with surface gesture detection | ● | |
Water-tolerant touch | ● (buttons) | ● (buttons, sliders, touchpads) |
Low-power operation | ● | ● |
Low-power flat rate (power consumption not dependent on button count) | ● | |
Ultra-low-power touch wake up | ● | |
Automotive qualified (silicon, noise, emissions) | ● | |
IEC 60730 Home Appliance Class B Safety certified touch | ● | ● |
Boost mode (quadrupled sensing speed or doubled SNR) | ● | |
Automatic Sensitivity Adaption (ASA) | ● | |
Code configurator for easy code development | ● | |
WLCSP package | ● | |
Capacitive self sensing | ● | ● |
Capacitive mutual sensing | ● | ● |
Why Choose Microchip as Your Touch Partner?
Our portfolio of products offers these key performance and design advantages:;

Noise-Robust Touch
- IEC 61000-4-6 for conducted noise level 3 and higher
- Automotive Bulk Current Injection (BCI)
- Emissions/CISPR-25
- Electrostatic Discharge (ESD), radiated noise


Automotive Touch
- Automotive design center
- Functional Safety design center
- Automotive touch MCUs
- Proven ISO 26262 touch provider



Home Appliance Safety
- IEC 60730 Class B-certified solutions:


True Water-Tolerant Touch
- Rain tolerant for outdoor use
- No lock-out; touch remains functional despite the presence of water
- Waterproof touch with Metal Over Capacitive (MOC) technology


Long-Term Touch Provider
- Using a proven and reliable touch supplier mitigates your risk
- More than 20 years of experience in touch technology
- Solutions for all touch use cases


Ease of Use
- Global support in your local language
- Code configurators to speed up your development
- Free tutorials and design resources on our Developer Help site
