Tag Archives: N-trig

Microsoft acquired part of N-trig for the pen

May 7, 2015

Recently, Microsoft acquired part of N-trig.  Mr. Stevie Bathiche, Microsoft Surface Distinguished Scientist wrote in Microsoft’s blog:  “Today we are excited to have acquired advanced digital pen technology from N-trig Ltd., with whom we’ve partnered closely for several years.”

As we know, N-trig was founded in 1999 with headquarter in Israel. N-trig has received over $120 million funding before. Their old investors include Microsoft. Microsoft hasn’t announce the amount regarding this acquisition yet. Rumors hold Microsoft paid about $200 million to acquire the pen-related part asset of N-trig.

Touch Display Research believe active-pen technology is superior to passive-pen technology in terms of accuracy, pressure sensing, and ability to draw fine lines. In the Active Pen report, Touch Display Research forecasted that the market for active-pen writing modules (including pen sensor, one pen, and the controller IC) will increase from $931 million in 2014 to $4.17 billion in 2020.

Figure. Active pen market forecast to 2020.

active pen forecast 2015.JPG

Source: Touch Display Research, Active Pen 2014 report.

Touch Display Research believes this is a good move for Microsoft.  More analysis about Microsoft, N-trig and Apple can be found in the Touch and Emerging Display monthly report, May issue.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

N-trig: Pen and Touch Technology

May 7, 2013

I’m a believer in simultaneous finger and pen touch. See my blog from January: “Microsoft’s Jeff Han keynote at the SID Bay Area Display and Touch Technology of the Future conference.”

Today I had the chance to meet N-trig, one of the leading suppliers of active pen technology, DuoSense. Gary Baum, the AVP of product marketing at N-trig showed me dozens of pens and demonstrated the palm rejection and hover features of their technology.

Figure: N-trig’s pen and touch on Fujitsu’s hybrid notebook tablet PC

Ntrig demo on Fujitsu

Source: N-trig, photo by Jennifer Colegrove

Several companies have announced plans to supply active pens. I asked Gary what he thinks about the competitors. Gary smiled and said, “It took Wacom over twenty years to get the pen right. And it took us over ten years to have the best pen. I don’t think other competitors can catch up so fast, it’ll take them at least three, four, or five generations of pens to get it right.  On the other hand, it’s a good thing to see more competitors, since it means the market is demanding a pen.”

What new products will N-trig release in the next few months? How much funding has N-trig received? Who are the other competitors in the active pen industry and what are their roadmaps? What are the critical characteristics of the best user experience with pens? What’s the market forecast for active pen technology?  A detailed analysis can be found in the Touch and Emerging Display Monthly Report.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer and team

Microsoft Jeff Han keynote about touch and pen technologies

Jeff Han keynote with cr2I volunteered for SID (Society of Information Display) Bay-Area chapter, and helped with organizing the first 1-day “Display and Touch Technologies of the future 2013” conference as a conference co-chair. After 5 months of preparation, the 1-day conference was held on Jan 16th, 2013, and it was overwhelmingly successful with 160 attendees.

Microsoft’s Jeff Han and Intel’s Achin Bhowmik gave keynote presentations.

I had the honor to introduce the morning keynote: Jeff Han, General manager of Microsoft office division. Jeff Han was famous about promoting multi-touch since 2006, 1 year before the Apple’s iPhone in the market. Han was the CEO, founder and chief scientist of Perceptive Pixel since 2006. Han was named to Time magazine’s listing of the 100 Most Influential People in The World in 2008. His company was acquired by Microsoft mid-2012.

Jeff Han brought a 50” touch screen display demo to this 2013 conference. In his keynote, he first showed the video of touch being used by CNN for the president election news. Then he introduced some advanced research that Microsoft is doing. He walked to his touch display and demoed the touch and pen writing. He said, “When you are in the drawing mode, then you want to go to the next page, you do a swipe. But the screen shows you a line. Now you realized that you are in the drawing mode, not the touch mode. Then you have to go here, click this button to switch to touch mode. You see, that break the flow.” He emphasized that with simultaneous touch and pen technology, user can have the smooth flow.

As Jeff Han emphasized that with simultaneous touch and pen technology, user can have the smooth flow to work on the touch display.

Another touch company has touch and pen technology is N-trig. N-trig’s DuoSense had been adopted in several notebook PCs, such as the HP’s touchsmart 12.1”. DuoSense also was adopted in the HTC’s flyer tablet.

The most successful (with the high volume sold) touch and pen device might be the Samsung’s Galaxy Note. It’s a hybrid of phone and tablet (some people call this phablet). The Galaxy Note’s touch is the combination of an on-cell projected capacitive AMOLED with a wacom digitizer pen beneath the OLED display. Samsung reported that the original Galaxy Note sold 10 million units in 10 months. The Galaxy Note II is even more popular, with 5 million units sold in 2 months.

Thanks for reading.

Jennifer and team

Touch Display Research Inc.