There is also growing interest in making better use of touchpads for functionality like image manipulation, Daoud said. Gesture technology already offered on Synaptics touchpads includes using one or multiple fingers to jump between pages in an e-book, rotate images or zoom into documents.

Synaptics is also looking to bring haptics to touchpads, in which a vibrating touchpad can notify users of certain events. For example, if a user receives an e-mail during a meeting, a buzzing sensation in the touchpad can notify the user of the event, Vena said. That could be helpful if a user doesn't want a laptop chiming during a meeting.

"There's all kinds of things in the haptics area that could be potentially interesting to us," Vena said.

Haptics are already being used in devices like cell phones and GPS devices. Additionally, the technology is being researched for use in mice and keyboards. Mobile-phone makers like Nokia, Samsung and Research In Motion use haptic technology to provide feedback to users on cell phones.