“As our rivets rub together, flashing sparks into the night.” Anything for a Tubes reference. Actually, the headline is relevant to today’s embedded designers because touch-sensitive interfaces are becoming hugely popular, just as they have been for millions of years. But now they’re popular in electronic gadgets, too. (Just as they have been for…. oh, never mind.)

Cypress Semiconductor and Atmel are among the microcontroller companies making noise about their touch-enabled chips. These devices include interface logic for capacitive touch screens (sold separately), making it much easier for the average engineer to include this must-have feature. But there’s a lot more to touch than just having the right digital I/O.