High performance temperature sensors for wearables

 In this Internet-of-Things era, the new AS621x family of temperature sensors uniquely enables ams’ customers more simply to integrate this tiny 1.5mm2 Wafer Level Chip Scale Package (WLCSP) into their designs, without paying a power or space penalty. Prototyping and design verification becomes easier than ever before due to the product family’s industry-standard serial interface with eight I²C addresses and a factory-calibrated sensor. 

This combination means that the AS621x family can be used in a broad spectrum of applications ranging from industrial process control solutions, Internet-of-Things applications such as cold-chain monitoring, medical data acquisition through to battery-powered mobile and wearable devices. 

“The new AS621x family of temperature sensors from ams is ideally suited for battery-operated devices, including wearables, laptops and tablets. We are making thermal management easy for our customers as the family’s ultra-low power consumption – in addition to its tiny size – enables a tight thermal control,” said Michael Leitner, Vice President and General Manager for the business line Medical + Specialty Sensors at ams.

The AS621x family of temperature sensors comes in three accuracy versions to give customers a wide choice to best match their requirements: ±0.2°C for the AS6212; ±0.4°C for the AS6214; and ±0.8°C for the AS6218. The new generation of sensors is all about helping customers to integrate the temperature sensor into their system more easily. 

Not only has ams decreased the supply voltage range to a low level of 1.71V, but by additionally increasing the number of I2C addresses to eight, customers now have the added flexibility to monitor up to eight hot spots in their systems at minimum effort – especially during prototyping.

As the AS621x is a complete digital temperature system, which has been factory-calibrated to an accuracy up to +/-0.2°C, customers only need to solder the sensor solution onto their PCB to enjoy highest accuracy with no further calibration required. For greater sensitivity to temperature change, the resolution of the temperature value output has also increased to 16 bit.

This new generation of temperature sensors has the same small form factor as the preceding generation (AS620x) of sensors from ams at 1.5x1mm (in WLCSP) and the industry-leading low power consumption of a typical current of 6µA at a measurement rate of four samples per second.

The AS621x temperature sensor family is now available in production volumes. Unit pricing starts at EUR 0.62 in order quantities of 1,000. An evaluation board is available.