MSP430™ capacitive touch sensing microcontrollers
CapTIvate™ MCUs: Easiest to use capacitive touch solutions
MSP430™ capacitive touch sensing MCUs feature CapTIvate™ technology offering the lowest power capacitive touch solutions. With support from 1 to 64 buttons, sliders, wheels and proximity with reliable performance in wet, dirty and greasy conditions as well as through metal, glass, plastic and other overlays, we have a capacitive touch solution for your MCU-based design.

Enhanced interface
Add more functionality. Capacitive sensing can be used for button replacement and so much more. Enable system wake-up events using proximity sensing or use sliders or wheels to implement swipe and drag gestures.

Improved aesthetics
Upgrade your product’s appearance. Today’s users demand more elegant interfaces than mechanical buttons. Implement sleeker designs with capacitive sensing by seamlessly blending functionality with overlay materials such as glass, metal, or plastic.

Superior reliability
Strengthen your design integrity. With no moving parts, capacitive interfaces are less prone to mechanical failure and are easier to clean and maintain than mechanical buttons. They are also resistant to moisture, dirt, and dust build-up.
Why develop your capacitive touch interface with us?
MSP430 CapTIvate™ MCUs are leading the change for the capacitive touch HMI experience. These MCUs deliver easy to use, robust capacitive touch capabilities for industrial, building automation and consumer applications through:
- A scalable portfolio that supports a wide variety of use cases, overlays and environments
- Low-power operation to extend battery life
- A broad ecosystem of development tools, software, examples and training to speed development
- Noise and moisture immune performance with IEC- and IPX-certified solutions
The MSP430 CapTIvate MCU portfolio has you covered from simple touch applications to more complex use cases requiring additional I/O, higher memory density, and more peripherals.
Reduce your time to market with an intuitive development ecosystem. Generate source code and tune sensors in five minutes or less using the CapTIvate MCU design center.
Design with confidence. The MSP430 CapTIvate MCU portfolio offers IPX certified solutions for water tolerance and IEC certified solutions for electromagnetic immunity.
Capacitive touch sensing MCUs with CapTIvate technology
FRAM/RAM | 8KB/2KB | 8KB/2KB | 8KB/2KB | 16KB/4KB | 32KB/6KB | 64KB/8KB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Buttons (#) | Up to 4 | Up to 16 | Up to 16 | Up to 64 | Up to 64 | Up to 64 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Capacitive touch IOs | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sensing blocks | 4 | 4 | 4 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Package | 24-pin VQFN and DSBGA | 32- and 40-pin VQFN, 48-pin LQFP | 32- and 40-pin VQFN, 48-pin LQFP | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Availability | Now | Now | Now | Now | Now | Now | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Evaluation module | BOOSTXL-CAPKEYPAD | CAPTIVATE-FR2633 | CAPTIVATE-FR2676 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Software | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
User's guide | CapTIvate Technology Guide |
Minimal development time
With a proven design flow process, comprehensive reference designs for moisture tolerance, noise immunity and system integration along with extensive online training and documentation, MSP430 capacitive touch MCUs help you get to market faster.

Resources to start development
Define requirements using the CapTIvate Design Flow Guide
- Provides a simple method for defining requirements and understanding the impact of the operating environment on performance
- Ensures the capacitive touch design will meet the product requirements so expensive re-work isn’t needed later
Check feasibility with CapTIvate MCU development kits
- Enable quick feasibility testing of capacitive touch sensor designs
- Find the ideal balance of features versus cost for your application with the broad CapTIvate device portfolio
Develop using the CapTIvate Design Center
- One-stop-shop development environment
- Captures your sensor configuration
- Generates your source code
- Lets you fine-tune your sensors in as little as five minutes- getting you to mass production faster
Integrate using the CapTIvate Design Flow Guide
- Provides a simple validation checklist for ensuring reliability in mass production
Robust and autonomous peripherals
Our capacitive touch solutions features both analog and digital functions that enable electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) control and enhanced noise tolerance. The CapTIvate technology peripheral is designed to make measurements without any CPU intervention, thus simplifying design and timing considerations while enabling ultra-low power operation. Learn more about the peripheral below.
Architecture
CapTIvate technology features a charge transfer architecture with parasitic capacitance offset subtraction to both improve sensitivity and reduce latency by zooming in on the small changes in capacitance due to a touch or proximity.
Certain MSP430 CapTIvate MCUs also have multiple sensing blocks to enable parallel scanning of electrodes, further reducing detection latency perceived by the user.
Frequency hopping
CapTIvate technology contains a dedicated frequency-hopping and spread-spectrum capable oscillator for clocking capacitance-to-digital conversions. This capability significantly improves immunity to conducted and radiated noise sources.
Automation
CapTIvate MCU’s automation features can help increase the battery life of your product. The capacitive touch MCUs come with a hardware state machine to offload IIR noise filtering, environmental drift tracking, proximity detection and event timing- leaving the CPU off until a touch or proximity is detected by hardware logic.
ROM libraries
CapTIvate MCUs come with common software functions in ROM, allowing you free up more FRAM memory for your application. ROM libraries include capacitive touch sensing functions as well as drivers for UART, SPI, and I2C communication.
