Interactive Display Refresh Rate Optimization via Sensor Input Buffering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern mobile computing devices face a challenge in minimizing power consumption while maintaining fast response times for touch-sensitive displays, as reducing power consumption often conflicts with increasing responsiveness, leading to inefficiencies in both areas due to limited refresh rates and system sleep state latency.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a low power mode that buffers touch sensor input and adjusts scan rates, allowing the system to wake and process inputs quickly, while reducing display refresh rates and using a frame buffer to store and transmit updates asynchronously, enabling responsive display updates without increasing power consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Use of energy by moving object
If the display refresh rate is reduced to minimize power consumption, then power consumption is reduced, but the response time increases and the system appears less responsive
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by buffering touch sensor inputs during low power mode before the display refreshes. This allows the system to be ready to process and display updates immediately when waking from sleep, eliminating the delay between user input and display response while maintaining low refresh rates for power savings.
Solution Approach 2:
A buffer acts as an intermediary between the touch sensor and the display output. The buffer temporarily stores touch inputs received during low power mode, allowing the system to decouple the low refresh rate from the fast touch input capture, thus maintaining responsiveness without increasing power consumption.
2Use of energy by moving object
If the system enters sleep state to reduce power consumption, then power consumption is reduced, but latency occurs during transition between sleep and wake power states
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary buffering of touch inputs during the sleep state transition. By capturing and buffering touch sensor data before the system fully wakes, the buffer ensures that no input is lost during the transition latency period, making the system appear more responsive despite the power state changes.
Solution Approach 2:
The buffer serves as an intermediary that bridges the gap between the sleep state and wake state. It temporarily holds touch inputs that arrive during the transition period, allowing the system to process and respond to inputs immediately after waking without the delay that would otherwise be caused by the state transition.
3Loss of time
If the touch sensor operates at increased scan rate to ensure every touch is processed, then responsiveness is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the touch sensor scan rate based on power state. During low power mode, the sensor operates at a reduced scan rate to save power, while the buffer compensates by capturing inputs at this lower rate. When the system wakes, it can process the buffered inputs quickly, providing responsive behavior without maintaining high scan rates continuously.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the operational parameters of the touch sensor based on power state. By adjusting the scan rate parameter dynamically between low and high values depending on whether the system is in sleep or active mode, it optimizes the balance between power consumption and touch detection capability.
Data Source
AI summary
A solution is proposed to perform display updates in a lower power user interface. According to one embodiment, the display panel is placed in the lower possible refresh rate that can be supported. Rendered updates are presented to the displays at the fasted possible pixel rates the communication interface between the rendering component to the display panel can support, and a buffer on the receiving end of the display receives and stores updated frames as they are rendered and transmitted. Subsequent display updates (generated in response to subsequent sensor input, for example) may be created and transmitted as soon as the preceding display frames are buffered. In the meantime, as soon as the update frame is transmitted, the timing controller of the display panel is instructed to interrupt the current refresh period and to immediately rescan the frame.