Texas Instruments Introduces Single-Chip Passive Infrared MEMS Temperature Sensor

Texas Instruments has introduced a single-chip passive infrared (IR) MEMS temperature sensor, the TMP006. The sensor allows non-contact measurement of device case temperature using IR systems in mobile consumer electronics applications such as notebooks, tablets and smartphones.

The temperature sensor features a 16-bit analog-to-digital-converter signal conditioning, an on-chip MEMS thermopile sensor, voltage references and a local temperature sensor on a single chip with an area of 1.6 mm².

At present, case temperature is approximately measured based on the temperature of the system. The introduction of the MEMS temperature sensor will allow designers to develop user-friendly systems with optimum performance. The sensor can also be utilized for the measurement of surrounding temperature of the device, resulting in new characteristics and user applications.

The MEMS sensor consumes merely 1 µA in shutdown mode and 240 µA quiescent current. It has I2C/SMBus digital interface. It can operate in a broad temperature range between -40 °C and +125 °C with an accuracy of ±1 °C for the IR sensor and accuracy of ±0.5 °C on the local sensor.

Source: http://www.ti.com