The push for electronics manufacturers these days is to pack as many features as they can into devices while making them smaller and smaller.

The newest revelation from Samsung will help in that pursuit. The hTSP is a hybrid touch screen panel. Up until now, any device with touch screen functionality needed two components – the screen itself, and a printed circuit board, or PCB, which is full of sensors that fit behind the screen and lets you input as you wish. The hTSP combines both those components into a single TFT LCD display. That means that touch screens now take up less space and can be put into thinner and lighter devices. Samsung has managed to make hTSP displays so far in sizes up to 3.5 inches, so that means that they can, and likely will, start showing up in a full range of consumer devices ranging from PMPs to navigation devices soon.