Various types of operating systems are updated every year. To keep up with the market trend, they even need to support different hardware platforms. Among them, the application products of ARM architecture processors are increasing year by year. Windows 10, Ubuntu, QNX, Raspberry Pi OS all support ARM-based processors. When the ARM-based processor is chosen for the client design, PenMount can provide or assist with the required driver.

Since the PenMount device reporting system belongs to the standard HID digitizer device category, when product developers use PenMount projected capacitive (PCAP) touch controller USB interface devices with Windows 10, Ubuntu 20.10, Raspberry Pi OS or other ARM version operating systems, these systems generally have built-in drivers that support HID digitizer devices. Also because the projected capacitive touch products do not require the feature of calibration, as long as the system detects the PenMount USB device, users do not need to install additional drivers to achieve basic touch operation functions. Therefore, if the developer has no special function requirements, PenMount USB devices are plug-and-play on any ARM hardware platform.

When it comes to the x86 hardware architecture, drivers for Windows 10 and Linux operating systems (Linux system packages such as Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, openSUSE, etc.) are already available on the PenMount website. When the customer uses the PenMount device with I²C or UART (RS232) interface, you can contact your corresponding technical support window to put forward any requests for the ARM version of the operating system driver. We will evaluate the feasibility of driver development.

Below are two cases of how we assisted in the development of drivers for the ARM platform operating system:

Case 1: Customer was using the projected capacitive USB interface. Although it could be operated by the built-in driver, the built-in driver of the system did not support the function of the touch sound feedback. The customer described the system as Ubuntu 18.04 and provided a Xorg.0.log file. This allowed us to know in detail whether it belongs to the ARM or AArch64 architecture, so that we could evaluate a suitable hardware platform, recompile the ARM version of the PenMount Linux system standard driver, and eventually allow the customer’s product application to achieve the function of making sound feedback by touch.

Case 2: The customer expected to use the projected capacitive I²C interface with QNX 6.5 ARM version operating system. Since the system does not provide I²C interface touch drivers, and QNX is a closed architecture, some clients were not familiar with the operation of the QNX system. Driver development needs time to understand the behavior of learning touch devices. After evaluation, we opened a project to assist the customer to develop the driver, so that the customer can avoid the time consuming process of driver development.

The various designs of PenMount’s touch hardware and software meet the needs of the market. If there is any individualized product specification requirement, we will fully assist in the development. For the hardware and software information of PenMount series standard products, you can refer to the relevant product specifications.

You are welcome to download all of PenMount’s standard product data and drivers directly from our websitev at: www.salt.com.tw and www.PenMount.com.

If you have any suggestions or comments please send e-mail to: salt@salt.com.tw .