March 1, 2006, San Jose, CA--Avago Technologies has announced a CMOS digital color sensor that can be directly interfaced to a microcontroller without the need for additional components. The new ultra-thin color sensor is supplied in a 20-pin QFN (quad flat no lead) package and, measures 5 mm x 5 mm x 0.75 mm. It operates from a 2.6 V supply voltage, providing low power consumption for portable devices.
The Avago ADJD-S313-QR999 digital color sensor is easily interfaced to the system microcontroller via the sensor's two-wire serial interface. The sensor offers excellent performance in a wide variety of portable applications, including mobile phones, MP3 players and PDAs where it can be used in conjunction with a white LED for reflective color measurement. Other applications include color measurement in portable medical instruments and color detectors and readers.
"Designers of consumer and medical devices requiring digital color measurement capabilities have requested a combination of higher integration, ease-of-use, smaller size and lower power consumption," said Lee Soo Ghee, vice president and general manager for Avago Technologies' Optoelectronic Products Division. "Our new digital color sensor is the first in the industry to combine all of these features."
The standard two-wire serial interface and integrated analog-to-digital converter (ADC) -- rather than variable-frequency, square-wave TTL (transistor transistor logic) output -- translates into significantly simpler interfacing combined with more flexible optical-to-electrical signal conversion. The color sensor's basic architecture comprises integrated RGB filters built on a uniformly distributed photodiode array, a logic control core and a gain selector with an ADC that supports digital communication. The uniform RGB filters and photodiode array minimize the effect of light-gradients caused by optical misalignment and irregularity of surfaces.
With the wide sensing range of Avago's ADJD-S313-QR999, the sensor can be used for many applications with different light levels simply by adjusting the gain setting. The integrated ADC helps to remove unwanted noise caused by analog signal preconditioning. Additional features include a selectable sleep mode to minimize current consumption when the sensor is not in use, and operation over the 0 degrees C to +70 degrees C temperature range.