STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor company and a manufacturer of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), today announced details of a miniature smart sensor that combines a 3-axis accelerometer with an embedded microcontroller in a tiny compact 3 millimetre (mm) × 3mm × 1mm land grid array (LGA) package for custom motion-recognition capabilities.
ST has combined the microcontroller, operating as a sensor hub that runs sensor-fusion algorithms, and a high-precision 3-axis digital accelerometer into a single package that the company calls “iNEMO-A.” The device reduces the demand on the host controller and application processor and decreases power consumption in portable devices. Both benefits deliver greater freedom and flexibility to the design of motion-enabled consumer electronics. The integration of high-resolution linear-motion sensing and the sensor hub in a single package increases system robustness and is suitable for board-layout optimisation.
The LIS331EB iNEMO-A smart sensor targets a wide range of applications that include wearable sensor applications, motion-activated user interfaces in phones and tablets and augmented reality. The device embeds an ultra-low-power ARM Holdings Cortex-M0 with functional capability, power consumption and memory size that is suitable for sensor-hub applications and iNEMO sensor fusion on mobile applications. The sensor hub supports the connection of a 3-axis gyroscope, a 3-axis magnetometer and a pressure sensor to deliver a sensor-fusion solution. Additional sensors, such as temperature and humidity sensors, may also be connected.
Addressing power constraints in battery-operated portable devices, the LIS331EB iNEMO-A 3-axis digital accelerometer also contains two embedded finite state machines (FSM) and an embedded first-in first-out (FIFO). The FSM and FIFO capabilities enable custom motion-recognition detection, including specific gesture detection, and a pedometer that can run without using the embedded microcontroller, further reducing the overall power consumption. The FSM can also be used to enliven the microcontroller, enabling advanced power management techniques.
The high-performance 3-axis accelerometer in the LIS331EB iNEMO-A features a selectable scale range of ±2 grams (g), ±4g, ±8g and ±16g and houses a low-power ARM Cortex-M0 core with 64 kilobytes (KB) Flash Memory and 128KB random-access memory (RAM), as well as multiple timers and input/output (I/O) ports, such as general purpose I/O (GPIO), serial peripheral interface (SPI), inter-integrated circuit (I2C) and universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART).
The LIS331EB smart motion sensor will start sampling in the second quarter of 2013.
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