Popularization of MEMS smart sensors

By 2020, there will be 30 billion wireless sensor nodes installed in the world. In the next decade, the number of sensors may reach trillions. In China, with the rapid development of automotive electronics, new digital consumer electronics, and medical electronics, the demand for sensors in the domestic market has shown a rapid growth trend. According to the forecast of the China Electronic Information Industry Development Institute, the domestic sensor market will grow at a compound annual rate of 31% in the next five years. The sensor market in the areas of automotive, logistics, mining exploration, safety monitoring of coal mines, security, and RFID tag cards has grown rapidly. Among them, consumer products and the automotive industry have the largest demand for sensors.

In this context, the smart sensor technology represented by MEMS has been rapidly developed. Compared with traditional sensor technology, MEMS is small in size, light in weight, low in cost, low in energy consumption, high in reliability, easy to mass produce, and highly intelligent. It is now in a state of rapid development. As a leading global supplier of data conversion and signal processing technologies, ADI has been focusing on developing the core technologies of MEMS sensors to meet the needs of different markets. Mr. Zhao Yanhui, ADI's MEMS product market and application manager in Asia Pacific, said this.

Automotive active safety sensor

In China, consumers have gradually shifted their demands for the basic functions of cars to higher levels such as security. According to third-party research reports, the growth rate of safety-related automotive semiconductor components is at the forefront of automotive electronics. Mr. Zhao Yanhui also added that due to the continuous improvement of consumer safety awareness, the market’s demand for advanced driver assistance systems based on radar, visual signal processing, and more accurate digital signal processors such as MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes non-stop upgradin.

Mr. Zhao Yanhui briefly introduced ADI’s representative products in automotive active safety technology. He said that ADI’s new generation of airbag acceleration sensors ADXL185/ADXL189/ADXL188/ADXL288 with angular velocity for ESC and Rollover/Roll stability The ADXRS800 sensor integrates numerous system functions such as self-test, signal bandwidth setting, threshold triggering, and excellent resistance to vibration. ADI has delivered more than 500 million MEMS sensors to date and has nearly 20 years of collision sensor design experience, as well as knowledge accumulation and technology.

Wearable medical equipment

With the rise of the mobile medical boom, wearable application products are no longer at the "talked" level. There are more and more practical applications in the field of signal detection products, sports equipment and consumer products. The emergence of commercial products will be a period of growth and development of the market this year, and it will be followed by breakthrough growth and the emergence of a large number of related products.

According to the current market development trend, Mr. Zhao Yanhui said that ADI will actively participate in the wearable medical electronics field, continue to strengthen the industry-leading MEMS technology, analog mixed-signal processing chip investment, and continue to increase the intensity of system development, including the hardware platform With the development of corresponding software algorithms and the investment of technicians in related system applications, a series of semiconductor products and reference designs suitable for wearable medical needs were introduced. More importantly, ADI has established a dedicated technology application and development team around applications for vital sign signals and motion monitoring to provide solutions and support beyond the chip level. Recently, Withings announced the latest wearable device "WithingsPulse", which uses ADI's ADXL362

Industrial intelligence

Industrial intelligence requires two-way interaction. The development of network communication and intelligent sensing technology will promote the intelligent development of industrial control. Network communication technology can integrate industrial control into a system, which can easily connect discrete subsystems and nodes into a large system. More and more industrial control systems have realized networking and are more networked and intelligent. For industrial applications with complex on-site and specific conditions, high temperature, high reliability, and devices that require isolation also require more new technologies to support.

Mr. Zhao Yanhui also emphasized that ADI's MEMS products are not only focused on basic motion detection or novel features, but also consider extreme working environments. Such as the oil logging industry, it requires the sensor to maintain the key features such as sensitivity, noise and zero point accuracy under extreme conditions such as impact, vibration and high temperature. These MEMS sensors can provide valuable and critical system performance improvements to provide logging or extraction efficiency, reduce system downtime, and other considerable benefits.