Intelligent accelerometers & gyroscopes on show at CES 2016

Intelligent three-axis accelerometers - BMA422 and BMA455

Today's applications running on modern mobile devices place many demands on motion sensors. These sensors are required to continuously sense motion, such as for step counting operations, while at the same time delivering a high level of performance without compromising battery lifetime.

To meet these challenges, the Bosch sensors are the first to integrate embedded intelligence functionality into standalone accelerometers. Adding intelligent features to an accelerometer enables innovative applications, while minimising power consumption by eliminating the need to wake up an application processor or an additional discrete sensor hub. Overall system power management and user experience can be improved by the accelerometer detecting and processing motions such as glance, pick-up and tilt.

Current consumption of the accelerometers is kept very low to extend battery life time and the integrated Android 6.0 “Marshmallow” features minimise programming effort for customers. Each device delivers outstanding accelerometer performance, most importantly, low offset, low Temperature Coefficient Offset (TCO) and low noise levels.

Two new accelerometers are being launched: the BMA422 'all-rounder' is suited for standard applications; and the BMA455 provides high performance for areas such as gaming and immersive activity-tracking. In addition the high level of performance enables the most demanding applications covering augmented reality, virtual reality, image stabilisation and industrial measurement applications such as spirit levelling and inclination measurement.

The BMA422 measures 2.0x2.0x0.95mm³, while the BMA455 measures 2.0x2.0x0.65mm³.

High performance gyroscopes - BMG250 and BMG280

Mobile devices require gyroscopes for many applications, including gaming, augmented reality, virtual reality and OIS. To provide the necessary performance, Bosch Sensortec’s gyroscopes combine the most important parameters in a single device: low noise, low TCO and high bias stability.

Although delivering high performance, they do both feature the lowest power consumption of any standalone gyroscope in the market, thus helping to extend battery lifetime in mobile devices.

This announcement includes two three-axis gyroscopes: the BMG250 provides low noise, low TCO and high bias stability, while the BMG280 delivers ultra-low noise optimised for OIS and includes a secondary interface for OIS, making it fit for use in camera modules. The BMG280’s secondary interface can be used in parallel with the primary user application interface, for example for simultaneous panorama creation and OIS.

The BMG250 and BMG280 gyroscopes both measure 3.0x2.5x0.83mm³.

Availability

Samples of the all sensors are available now, with mass production of the gyroscopes to commence in Q1 2016 and mass production of the accelerometers starting in mid-2016. Contact Bosch Sensortec for pricing.