Motion sensing technology has ushered in a new era in portable consumer electronics. User experience has reached a whole new level with its ability to convert human movement and spatial awareness to various interactive system functions. Bill Murphy, product line director, Micromachined Products Group, Analog Devices opines that motion sensing adds several novel functions to portable electronics products such as pedometer function to cell phones, landscape-to-portrait and horizon orientation photo functions to phones and digital cameras and interactive actions such as shaking, rolling to gaming devices making it the technology of choice for the future.

ADI’s new IMEMS products cater to this demand at power consumption as low as 25 microamps saving upto 80 percent power compared to competing products and enhanced resolution over the entire measurement range. Analog Devices’ ADXL345 three-axis digital iMEMS® (integrated micro-electro-mechanical system) accelerometer is specifically designed to enable motion sensing in energy and cost constrained portable devices such as cell phones, digital cameras, mobile gaming systems.

Other accelerometers have fixed output data rates of 100 Hz, 400 Hz or 1kHz whereas the ADXL345 has a flexible output range of 0.1 Hz to 3.2 kHz, allowing precise allocation of power to system functions. Its host controller consumes up to 75% less power by remaining in sleep mode as long as possible, which is made possible by moving the function to detect change in movement or acceleration off the host controller.

The on-chip FIFO memory block can hold up to 32 sample sets of X, Y, Z input data. An in built ADC simplifies hardware configurations in portable electronics products. Other notable features include single tap and double tap detection, activity and inactivity detection, free fall detection, programmable threshold levels and I²C and three- and four-wire SPI digital interfaces.

http://www.analog.com/en/press-release/1_19_09_ADIS_MEMS_Motion_Sensor_D...