Capacitive sensing is a low-power, high-resolution contactless sensing technique that can be applied to a variety of applications ranging from proximity detection and gesture recognition to remote liquid level sensing. The sensor in a capacitive sensing system is any metal or conductor, allowing for a highly flexible system design.

The main challenge limiting sensitivity in capacitive sensing applications is noise susceptibility of the sensors. With the FDC2x1x resonant sensing architecture, performance can be maintained even in the presence of fluorescent light.

The FDC2x1x is a multi-channel family of high-resolution, high-speed capacitance-to-digital converters for implementing capacitive sensing solutions. The devices employ an innovative narrow-band based architecture to offer high rejection of out of band noise while providing high resolution at high speed. The devices support a wide excitation frequency range, offering flexibility in system design. A wide frequency range is especially useful for reliable sensing of conductive liquids such as detergent, soap, and ink.Read more