Two-dimensional position detection system with MEMS accelerometer for mouse applications

A hybrid two-dimensional position sensing system is designed for mouse applications. The system measures the acceleration of hand-movements which are converted into two-dimensional location coordinates. The system consists of four major components: 1) MEMS accelerometers, 2) CMOS analog read-out circuitry 3) an acceleration magnitude extraction module, and 4) a 16-bit RISC microprocessor. Mechanical and analog circuit simulation shows that the designed padless mouse system can detect accelerations as small as 5.3 mg and operate up to 18 MHz.