MEMS sensors lead new smart car safety

With the continuous advancement of automotive technology, electronic products such as sensors continue to be applied to the automotive industry, playing a vital role in the automotive field.

According to reports, the MEMS sensor market is gradually returning to growth after the recession of the past few years. Its recovery is driven by the development of new-generation devices and new applications. It is estimated that the market size of MEMS components in 2014 will reach 8 billion U.S. dollars, with a growth rate of about 14%. One of the important sources of growth will be automotive electronics. The specific application will be in automotive safety.

Car safety, eternal topic safety first, this is the eternal topic of the automotive industry. Vehicle safety systems are generally divided into active safety systems and passive safety systems. The so-called active safety is to prevent the occurrence of accidents and determine the probability of automobile accidents. Passive safety is the protection of car members or the protection of crashed vehicles or pedestrians in the event of an accident. The severity of the injuries of the members.

In the era of smart cars, active security technology has become a highly anticipated emerging field, and rollover and stability control (ESC) are new improvements to today's active security systems. This requires MEMS acceleration sensors and angular velocity sensors to sense the body posture. "Because such sensors are often installed in locations where vibration is relatively awkward, sensors are required to have high vibration shock resistance. This is a challenge for MEMS sensors." ADI Automotive, a global leader in high-performance signal processing solutions Mr. Xu Zhibin, the marketing manager of the electronics industry in China, said.

ADI has long-term planning and strong investment in automotive MEMS sensor products based on the long-standing and profound MEMS technology accumulation and profound understanding of automotive applications. At present, we have established a complete product line of high-precision and high-performance airbags, stability control, and rollover control, and can support customers at the system level.

In addition, ADI also has accelerometers and gyroscopes in the field of car navigation to meet blind spot navigation and inertial navigation when satellite signals are weak or without signals.

Smart car safety system, two new development trends At present, one of the trends in the development of smart car safety systems is the rapid increase in the number of airbags and the loading rate of the stability control (ESC) system. We know that one of the characteristics of automotive technology development is that more and more components are electronically controlled. Therefore, as a result, the number and scale of electronic systems are continuously expanding. In particular, more MEMS sensors are required to sense different parts of the collision and the body posture.

At the same time, the integration of multiple sensors reduces system complexity and system costs, and is another major trend in the development of automotive safety systems.

ADI has nearly 20 years of collision sensor design experience and related knowledge accumulation and technology. Mr. Xu Zhibin said, “ADI has delivered more than 500 million MEMS sensors so far.” It is understood that ADI's new ADX185/ADXL189/ADXL188/ADXL288 for airbag acceleration sensors and ADXRS800 for ESC and Rollover/Rollstability are Integrated many internal system functions, such as self-test, signal bandwidth setting, threshold triggering, excellent resistance to vibration, and so on.

At the same time, digital interfaces and a high degree of integration help customers reduce system costs.