Circuits guide series
What is the purpose of the diodes in a keypad circuit?
A diode is a semiconducting device that allows the flow of electricity towards only one direction. Diodes are commonly used in applications where we want to prevent back-currents. One such application is in a keypad or keyboard circuit.
The 4x4 membrane keypad
When you wire a 4x4 (or similar) membrane keypad to your Arduino using a single analog data wire, like in the schematic below, most people readily understand the purpose of the resistors.
The resistors are used to create a voltage ladder, a circuit that produces multiple voltage reference points that can be measured by the Arduino. The sketch that is running in the Arduino can figure out which key was pressed by measuring the voltage on the sampling pin.
But what about the diodes? What is their purpose?
Diodes in the 4x4 keypad circuit
If you can somehow ensure that only one key can be pressed at any given time (perhaps through mechanical means), the diodes are not needed. Try it out, and you should see that the keyboard works fine.
But if you happen to press multiple keys on a matrix keypad (like when you hold down Shift-Cmd-S in a computer keyboard), an effect called "ghosting" comes into play.
When ghosting occurs, then usually a key that wasn't pressed is read by the host (the Arduino, in our case).
In many keyboard designs, diodes are added to deal with ghosting.
If you are curious to know more about this, I have found two useful resources:
- First Wikipedia's entry on Rollover Key, describing how a keyboard can deal with multiple pressed keys.
- Second, a blog post on the matrix-configuration keyboard. You can scroll down to the section on ghosting.
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Jump to another article
1. Pull-up & pull-down resistors
2. What is a bypass/decoupling capacitor?
3. What is the purpose of the diodes in a keypad circuit?
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8. Use MOSFETs to drive large(ish) loads
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