Oct 29 2010
A new class of small precision MEMS navigation and pointing gyros is now available to automotive, consumer and industrial customers wanting ‘real gyro’ performance and reliability on tight financial, space, and power budgets.
At under 6x5x1.2mm, weighing less than 0.08grammes and drawing 4.2mA on its 3V supply, Silicon Sensing’s new PinPoint® gyro provides unrivalled rate output stability over time, temperature, vibration and shock for a MEMS gyro in it’s class.
Eric Whitley, Business Development Executive at Silicon Sensing explains: “There was a tremendously positive reaction from key customers involved in our pre-launch evaluation programme with several taking production parts for existing products whilst others have selected PinPoint® for their next application. We have now commenced full production and are talking a wide variety of potential customers for whom this gyro offers an excellent solution.”
In September this year, Silicon Sensing announced that Futaba®, a leading Japanese manufacturer of remote control model helicopter electronics and controls, had chosen PinPoint® for its next generation servo-controllers.
Whitley continues: “PinPoint® is the only MEMS gyro on the market to function using a fully balanced vibrating silicon ring. Other designs all use various forms of simple unbalanced, open-loop vibrating mass structures – like a tuning fork or a comb design. PinPoint’s 3mm diameter balanced ring of resonates at 22kHz in a closed-loop control system. This is similar to an infinite number of tuning forks integrated to create a fully balanced vibrating circular structure and offers outstanding, reliable performance.”
Available in two sensing options - in-plane with the host PCBA or orthogonal with it - PinPoint® solves pitch, yaw and/or roll measurement requirements on a single tiny PCBA. Silicon Sensing also offers other inclined solutions for a wide variety of applications - such as in-car navigation head units.
PinPoint® is contained in a fully hermetically sealed ceramic LCC SMT package. It also offers analogue and digital SPI output modes, user selectable dynamic ranges between 75 and 900°/s for optimum sensitivity, user selectable bandwidth up to 100Hz for optimum noise performance and internal temperature output to allow external thermal compensation.
For over a decade Silicon Sensing has provided a highly successful range of silicon MEMS gyros and inertial systems to the automotive and commercial markets. The Company has a formidable reputation in the automotive industry – supplying over 3 million ESC yaw rate sensors per year with warranty returns less than 1 part per million.