Cirque Corporation
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| Industry | Touchpad, Touchscreen, Secure touchscreen |
|---|---|
| Genre | Capacitive Touch Solutions |
| Headquarters | Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. |
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Area served
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World Wide |
| Products | GlidePoint, GlideTouch, GlidePath |
| Owner | Alps Electric |
| Website | www.cirque.com |
Cirque Corporation is a Salt Lake City, Utah-based company which developed and commercialized the first successful capacitive touchpad, now widely used in notebook computers. Cirque develops and sells a variety of touch input products, both in OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and end-user retail form. Cirque was founded in 1991 by George E. Gerpheide, PhD, and James L. O'Callaghan, to commercialize the GlidePoint technology invented in the 1980s by Dr. Gerpheide.
For many years, Gerpheide and O'Callaghan traveled in an attempt to convince makers of notebook computer to agree to use GlidePoint. Dr. Gerpheide recalls "We would often drive to the COMDEX trade show in Las Vegas and stay in a seedy hotel. There wasn't money for a booth at the show, so we carried our GlidePoint prototypes around the convention center making demonstrations to whoever was willing to watch. The early prototypes had a suitcase full of electronic circuits. I knew they could be shrunk into an integrated circuit, but we didn't have money for that either. So we were seeking a large leap of faith for a manufacturer to agree to use the technology. It was even worse because at that time most notebook computers were running DOS, which did not need a pointing device!"
In April 1994, Cirque adapted GlidePoint into an integrated circuit and began selling a retail GlidePoint touchpad. The first notebook computer containing GlidePoint appeared soon thereafter. GlidePoint technology was licensed to Alps Electric Corporation LTD, and ALPS launched touchpad products into the market.
In 2003, Cirque was acquired by Alps Electric as a wholly owned subsidiary. Cirque continues to function as an independent research and technology development facility.
GlidePoint
GlidePoint was the first touchpad technology to be adopted in notebook computers as a system pointing device, that is, performing the same function as a mouse. Before that, system pointing was performed mostly using a small trackball embedded in the notebook computer case, and other mechanical devices. After GlidePoint's commercial introduction in April 1994, its popularity in notebook computers steadily increased and Synaptics and Logitech also introduced capacitive touchpad technologies. Presently, in 2009, both Synaptics and GlidePoint touchpads are used widely, with approximately 90% of notebook computers using touchpads.
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