Mar 15 2010
Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions, Inc. (TAOS) has recently launched its initial range of state-of-the-art proximity detection and digital ambient light sensors (ALS).
TAOS, a leading worldwide provider of digital ALS for the HDTV and smartphone markets, has designed the product range to enable manufacturers of consumer electronics products produce novel product designs. Besides this, the device range would also feature improved battery life and improved energy efficiency for next generation green electronic gadgets. These devices obviate the requirement to utilize plastic or glass before the sensor or drill holes in the product display, frame, or bezel so that light is able to reach the sensors.
Carlo Strippoli, Vice President of Sales & Marketing of TAOS, explains that the requirement of ambient light sensors to function behind translucent materials like glass has evolved as a vital need in current consumer electronics gadgets. Strippoli adds that manufacturers would need to devise a method to deliver more inviting, sleeker product designs along with decreased energy consumption and enhanced quality of pictures like digital ALS to match increasingly sophisticated customer requirements. Strippoli reveals that the next-generation range of TAOS’s sensitive proximity and digital ambient light devices would empower manufacturers of consumer electronic gadgets to design enhanced green products.
For longer-distance detection applications, an external driver is used to increase the power so that the concerned person in front of the monitor could be detected. The device incorporates a unique state machine that permits the device to descend to a reduced power wait state, so that the higher power external detection feature runs for a lesser time period. For detection applications that require ambient light sensing, the state-of-the-art TAOS devices incorporates a high-sensitivity ALS, TSL2580/81. TAOS has offered its support for the C-reference code, evaluation modules (EVMs), and software device drivers for reducing design effort and increasing time-to-market.
The incorporation of analog-to-digital converters (ADC), IR LED current-limited driver, backed by multiple 12C interface voltage options, interrupt capability, and flexible programming allows the TSL2771 family to be configured for various different applications. Since translucent materials or darkened glass can attenuate visible light by more than 100 times and be transparent to passage of IR light, the device that incorporates dual-photodiode architecture, patented by TAOS, helps the sensor system to compensate for increase in the IR content.
Kerry Glover, Applications Manager at TAOS, further explains that another major benefit offered by the TSL device family is power consumption. Battery life is very important for most portable applications. Glover adds that customary proximity detection techniques need a large amount of power. Glover reveals that with the latest TAOS architecture, only a single IR pulse is needed for the detection of presence, resulting in ten-times power savings as compared to customary or other digital solutions.