ST unveils MEMS accelerometer for automotive applications

STMicroelectronics' new AIS2IH three-axis linear accelerometer has been designed to bring enhanced resolution, temperature stability, and mechanical robustness to a broad range of non-safety automotive applications.

Leveraging ST’s expertise in both MEMS and automotive technologies, the AIS2IH looks to ensure improved reliability while delivering high-performance motion sensing over a wide -40ºC to +115ºC operating temperature range. The accelerometer also features ultra-low power consumption in a compact LGA-12 land grid array package, at an ultra-competitive price.

With five different operating modes, including one high-performance mode (HPM) and four low-power modes (LPM), the device supports switching between modes on the fly to optimise resolution and power consumption for the exact application requirements at any time.

The extended operating-temperature range combined with enhanced performance and cost-effectiveness enable the AIS2IH to address emerging automotive applications such as digital drive recorders, driver monitoring, vertical level sensing in vehicle suspension, and door automation.

The sensor is also suited to industrial IoT (IIoT) applications such as 5G smart antennas as well as sensitive medical applications like pacemakers, which require ultra-low power consumption, compact size, and high resolution at uncompromised reliability.

ST’s new automotive accelerometer has user-selectable full scales of ±2g, ±4g, ±8g, and ±16g, and is capable of measuring accelerations with output data rates (ODR) configurable in the range from 1.6Hz to 1.6kHz, with embedded configurable digital low-pass and high-pass filters.

Typical noise density is 90µg/√Hz when operating in high-performance mode. The operating current at 3V is 110μA in HPM and 0.67μA in LPM at 1.6Hz. The embedded 32-level FIFO and the motion- and activity-detection functions contribute to keeping the system-level power consumption within a tight budget.