Infineon is applying its powerful sensor family to the field of smart health. Infineon currently has four main types of sensors, namely MEMS microphones, 3D stereo radar sensors, 3D ToF flight sensors, and sensors related to the environment and air. These four types of sensors are designed and produced by Infineon's PSS division. With its years of experience in sensor development, Infineon can not only apply them in the industrial field, but also through cooperation with customers, put some The solution is applied to consumer health monitoring equipment.
Infineon's sensors imitate human perception capabilities such as vision, smell, touch, hearing, etc. Recently, Infineon also released its new research and development achievements in the fields of radar sensors, ToF sensors and carbon dioxide sensors and their applications in smart health.
Two highly integrated radar sensors
Infineon's mmWave radar sensor made its world debut at the Google Developers Conference 2016, and on the Google Pixel 4 it successfully demonstrated presence awareness, as well as simple detections such as gesture detection. test this function. Until now, Google has continued to use this radar product.
Radar can be likened to our eyes, detecting any movement and obstacles. Millimeter-wave radar can detect even the tiniest movements, including vital signs, and thus monitor vital signs. It can even use the presence of sensing to excite some device systems to sense distance, position, and speed. , angle and other data information, and then further use algorithms to monitor breathing, heartbeat, gestures, tracking people and other applications.
At the same time, the radar is also very practical and durable. The radar wave can penetrate the surface of any insulating material and the casing, so even if it is installed inside the product casing, it will not be affected. It is also not affected by light and can work normally in no light and in high temperature, foggy, and dusty environments. So it has high reliability.
Millimeter wave radar can cover many application scenarios. Infineon offers two mmWave radar sensor solutions for both simple motion detection and advanced (more advanced) sensing applications. Li Guohao, application marketing director of the Power and Sensing Systems Division of Infineon Technologies Greater China, said, "We provide a convenient start for radar novices and advanced sensing solutions for experienced radar users."
The first one is BGT60LTR11AIP, which is a cost-effective solution and the best solution that can easily replace infrared. It integrates a simple baseband on the chip and has integrated antenna packaging technology. The highly integrated solution helps customers solve the complex problems of antenna design, radio frequency and radar signal processing. It can also use automatic mode for detection. In automatic mode, the radar can detect people at a distance of 5 meters, the horizontal viewing angle is about 80 degrees, and the average power consumption is less than 5 mW (milliwatts). In the SPI mode, an external MCU or PC can extract the original radar data for the custom algorithm that has been developed. Using this method, the detection distance can be increased by up to 10 meters. The size of this chip is about 3 × 7 mm, and the architecture adopts one send and one receive. In addition, even in automatic mode, it also has 4 status input pins. This chip also provides an option for an external MCU, using high-end hardware and customized software to achieve a longer detection distance.
Another solution is BGT60TR13C, which is an ultra-wideband FMCW radar sensor with integrated antenna. It adopts MMIC with one transmitter and three receivers, and also adopts integrated antenna packaging technology. The chip size is 6×5 mm, the average power consumption is about 20~30mW (milliwatt), the bandwidth used is greater than 5GHz, and the resolution can reach 3 cm. Since it is a multi-transmission and multi-receive architecture, it can also extract angle information, and use some advanced algorithm development to realize gesture recognition, indoor personnel presence perception, tracking, and even heartbeat monitoring. The above functions can be used in a variety of In scenarios, such as smart buildings, smart homes, TVs, notebooks, and elderly care.
Pioneers in the field of ToF sensors
When it comes to ToF sensors, pmd and Infineon are pioneers in this field. As early as 2002, pmd has been engaged in this research. Before the formal cooperation between pmd and Infineon in 2013, pmd mainly focused on industrial-oriented applications. The ToF module developed by pmd is a very robust and easy-to-use module, which is still widely used today. In the middle of 2013, Infineon began to cooperate with pmd, in order to make ToF imager (imager) smaller in size and lower power consumption, and really apply it to consumer products.
Based on Infineon's accumulation in CMOS technology, Infineon announced the launch of the first-generation ToF imager in 2015, called REAL 3. By 2016, the second-generation product was released, and mass production was achieved on Lenovo and Asus phones based on the Google Tango standard. In 2018, Infineon's third-generation ToF products came out, and mass production of front-view Face ID was realized in LG mobile phones. By 2021, Infineon's ToF sensor has reached the sixth generation, and the sixth generation of products has a longer distance detection (for example, a distance of 10 meters, the reason is to adapt to the requirements of metaverse applications in the future) and more suitable for AR-equipped applications (including image enhancement and low power requirements).
ToF sensors are now scalable to many applications and use cases, such as mobile phones, robot vacuums, AMR applications, and even automobiles. The application of ToF in smart cockpits is very popular, such as intelligent sensing in the cockpit, which includes detection of drivers and passengers, adjustment of seats, lights, and parking. In short, as long as it involves obtaining information such as depth and distance, ToF can help get the distance of an object.
Infineon's high-resolution ToF sensor has tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of points, which has the advantage of being able to detect an image of an object. In view of this function, ToF has already implemented the function of fall detection in nursing homes and isolated hotels in a certain city, and has officially achieved mass production.
Infineon is the earliest pioneer in the ToF field, and it is also a manufacturer that has achieved mass production in consumer products.
The sensor that actually measures carbon dioxide concentration
Carbon dioxide concentration is a key indicator of air quality. Increasing the function of measuring carbon dioxide concentration and monitoring and controlling air quality in a targeted manner will help improve people's health, life comfort and work efficiency. On the other hand, controlling and using the ventilation system as needed can save energy and reduce the operating cost of the ventilation system. Therefore, the market needs a sensor that can truly measure carbon dioxide concentration without interference from other gases and can provide reliable data.
Currently, there are four main implementation technologies for carbon dioxide sensors: PAS, NDIR, EC, and eCO2. Among them, the size and cost of NDIR are a major drawback, and the accuracy and selectivity of EC and eCO2 are relatively weak, and are easily affected by humidity. Therefore, in Infineon's view, photoacoustic spectroscopy is the real solution for measuring CO2 concentrations. With experience and leadership in MEMS technology, Infineon has successfully developed the new XENSIV™ PAS CO2 sensor based on photoacoustic spectroscopy technology.
It has the same precision and selectivity as a high-end NDIR, but uses a MEMS microphone as a detector or detector with higher sensitivity and reduced device and design complexity compared to NDIR. Its size can be 1/4 of the current typical NDIR sensor, and the SMD package can support high-volume, large-scale production processes.
According to Liu Ju, Marketing Manager of Infineon Technologies Greater China Power Supply and Sensing Systems Division, as shown on the right side of the figure above, the orange-red is the eCO2 curve, the purple is the photoacoustic spectrum carbon dioxide sensor, and the blue is the Dual-channel NDIR sensor, green is the curve of the reference sensor, you can see the photoacoustic spectrum carbon dioxide sensor and dual-channel NDIR and reference sensor, their measurement curves are very close, but the deviation of eCO2 is very large. The accuracy of this product from Infineon is plus or minus 30PPM and plus or minus 3%, and the size is 14×13.8×7.5mm 3 .
It is worth mentioning that all the key components of the carbon dioxide sensor, such as infrared light source, optical filter, MEMS microphone, MCU and MOSFET, are products developed by Infineon.
