Electronic devices are ubiquitous in today's society. As the technology of electronic devices advances, the number of integrated functions enabled on such devices also increases. As an example, many of today's electronic devices include the ability to display information to users and to receive touch based input from users. In order to receive and process touch based input, many current electronic devices utilize capacitive sensing devices in combination with display devices. Typically such capacitive sensing devices process user input received from, for example, one or more fingers, styli, or other object in a sensing region of the capacitive sensor device.
However, as the number of integrated functions increases on electronic devices, the processing burdens imposed on their host processors also increase. (As an example, when an electronic device includes both a display and a capacitive sensor device, the host processor of the electronic device handles processing for both components.) As a result, the electronic devices may suffer from performance shortcomings due to the burden placed on their host processors. For example, a delay between user input and visual feedback to the user may arise because of host processor-induced latency.
As a result of such shortcomings, users may become frustrated and/or confused. User frustration or confusion may lead to user dissatisfaction or cause the users to perform repetitive and/or unnecessary user input actions which further burden the host processors. Additionally, as the number of the functions integrated onto electronic devices increases, power consumption also increases.
Taking mobile devices as a specific example, the use of mobile devices often require loading, displaying and controlling large amounts of data including pictures, web pages, maps, text and non-textual documents, etc. In some mobile devices, there is often a delay between user input (e.g. taps, double-taps, scroll commands, etc.) and visual feedback to the user.
The drawings referred to in this description should be understood as not being drawn to scale except if specifically noted.