Product category: Optoelectronic Sensors, Switches and Receivers
News Release from: STMicroelectronics | Subject: VM6101 light and colour sensing IC
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 5 February 2007
Chip senses ambient and coloured lights
STMicroelectronics' highly integrated light and colour-sensing IC is intended for use in many products including mobile phones, notebook PCs, and LCD TVs.
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STMicroelectronics' VM6101chip combines the functions of light and colour sensing in a single integrated device. It will be used in a wide range of optical feedback and sensing applications, including mobile phones, notebook PCs, and LCD TVs. The new VM6101 offers both colour and ambient light sensing, with an embedded system interface that needs no external components, a cost-saving feature for manufacturers.
The VM6101 can be used for automatic LCD backlight control (cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) or white LED).
The battery life of portable display products such as DVD players, camcorders, and digital cameras, as well as mobile phones and laptop PCs, is highly dependent on the power used by the LCD and on its brightness setting.
These sensors, with a standard I2C/SMBus (System Management Bus) interface, are easily integrated into any system to enable the LCD to be adjusted automatically to match ambient lighting conditions.
In addition, the VM6101 can be used to provide color balancing adjustment for projection systems and RGB backlighting.
'Ambient light sensing can benefit numerous applications', commented Jean-Yves Gomez, General Manager of ST's Imaging Division.
'Backlight control for LCDs, whether in mobile phones and other portable consumer devices, or in flat-panel TVs can dramatically enhance the consumer experience, while reducing power consumption and preserving battery life'.
'With this new device, ST is offering a level of integration and versatility never seen before in the light sensing market'.
In contrast to most imaging markets, where the general trend is towards more pixels for higher resolution, the VM6101 has four (red, green, and blue, and one with no filter), to measure total ambient light level and the separate RGB colour components.
Various discrete products based on monochrome light-to-voltage sensors have been available, but most require additional processing or conversion circuitry to operate as part of a complete application, thus resulting in higher cost; the few solutions that can perform color light measurement carry a heavy premium, which precludes many high-volume consumer applications.
In contrast, the VM6101 measures yellow, red, green and blue components separately on a single chip, which also includes all system components and uses an industry-standard communication bus for data readout and device setup - all at an attractively low price.
Part-to-part matching methods in manufacture ensure repeatable light measurements, while pixel-to-pixel matching in the VM6101 is better than plus or minus 1% (over the full illumination range, at constant temperature).
The sensor's spectral response is matched to that of the human eye through novel frequency-response shaping techniques that reject the IR spectrum, and a very wide dynamic range from 30mmux to 30klux is achieved by using a light-to-frequency pixel architecture.
The device features very low power consumption of 1mA in active mode, and just 1uA in standby mode.
In addition to features that reduce system cost and complexity when used with MCU-based controllers, the VM6101 also offers autonomous operating modes to further reduce or eliminate the CPU overhead.
A PWM output can be programmed to give direct control of an LED driver IC, using the data from any of the four sensor pixels.
Also, a highly flexible automatic light threshold detector can generate an interrupt signal to alert the system to a change in ambient light.
The VM6101 is packaged in a tiny 3 x 3 x 0.7mm 8-lead optical MLPD package.
Pricing for the VM6101 is US $0.77 for quantities of 10,000 units per year.
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