Touchscreens have becoming increasing common in mobile devices, laptops and pretty much every other type of recent technology. But how do they exactly work?
There are 2 basic types of touchscreen (capacitive or resistive). Most cellphone use capacitive touchscreens, as this type accepts multiple touches and responds very quickly. The downfall of these capacitive touchscreen is that they can only be activated by conducting objects, example your fingers. Resistance touchscreens are more durable, can be weatherproof, and are more commonly used with GPS devices. Since we are a cell phone repair company, we only work with capacitive touchscreens.
Today’s smartphones and cellphone screens are made from high strength glass. You have have heard of the term “gorilla glass” in the past. This is a type of chemically tempered glass, which is produced, to stand up against dropping your phone. Although it is still very possible to break your cell phone screen, gorilla glass makes the chances of it breaking a lot less likely. The reason the glass still can break is that the glass is manufactured to less than 1mm to reduce the phones size and weight.
The touch sensors on today’s smartphones are all underneath the glass itself, through capacitive measurements. Capacitance is described as the ability to hold a charge. Your phone screen sense your finger because your finger has the “ability to hold charge”. The device has an electrical grid embedded in its display, allowing it to know exactly where you have touched. This information is transferred quickly back to the phones motherboard to process.
Cell Phone Repair Blog 