Bosch Sensortec launches first IMU with sub 1mA current consumption

Applications such as immersive gaming, augmented reality and the emerging 3D indoor scanning applications must deliver precise, real-time user experiences. The BMI160 achieves this by synchronizing the inertial accelerometer and gyroscope sensor data precisely with external geomagnetic sensor data, and is ideally suited for applications requiring exact, low latency low power 9-axis sensor data fusion.

“Current battery limitations in devices such as smart watches, augmented reality glasses and wearable devices are restricting the adoption of more sophisticated applications which need to be continuously powered,” says Jeanne Forget, Marketing Director of Bosch Sensortec. “With its industry leading current consumption, the BMI160 makes a significant contribution to overcoming this hurdle, and will help usher in a new era of always-on applications.”

Precise sensor data fusion

Additional sensors from the Bosch Sensortec family, such as geomagnetic (BMM series) or pressure sensors (BMP series), can be connected as slaves via a secondary I2C interface. In this configuration, the BMI160 controls data acquisition of the external sensor with all sensor data being stored in the built-in FIFO. With the secondary interface configured as high speed SPI interface and connected to camera module, BMI160 also supports optical image stabilization (OIS).

Smart power management and built-in FIFO

The built-in power management unit (PMU) can be configured to further lower power consumption by automatically sending the gyroscope temporarily into fast start-up mode, then wake-up using the any-motion interrupt of the accelerometer. When connected to a geomagnetic sensor, the BMI160 can trigger a read-out of the magnetometer sensor data without host processor intervention. Longer host controller sleep cycles reduce power consumption at the system level. The integrated FIFO supports low power applications and prevents data loss in non-real-time systems. The FIFO architecture allows dynamic reallocation of FIFO space for accelerometer, gyroscope and external sensors respectively.

The BMI160 features an on-chip interrupt engine enabling low-power motion-based gesture recognition and context awareness. Interrupts issued in a power efficient manner include: any- or no-motion detection, tap or double tap sensing, orientation detection, free-fall or shock events.

Android 4.4 (KitKat) and Windows 8.1 compliance

The BMI160 fulfils the requirements of most standard operating systems and is fully Android 4.4 (KitKat) and Windows 8.1 compliant. Significant motion and step detector interrupts consume less than 200μA each.

Availability

The BMI160 is intended for high-volume consumer electronics manufacturers. Samples of the BMI160 are available now to key development customers.