Small form-factor colour detection sensor for smartphones

At just 0.5mm high, the TCS3410 ALS can easily fit in water drop notch for the selfie camera or in the ultra-narrow bezel of a smartphone, helping manufacturers to realise designs which maximise the screen-to-body ratio and hence the viewable display area. 

Smartphones which take advantage of the extended capabilities and improved performance of the TCS3410 can offer smoother and more responsive display-brightness management even in the most challenging low light conditions; superior camera performance with better white balancing and image colour correction; and the elimination of artefacts in camera images and videos induced by high frequency flickering from artificial light sources.

The TCS3410 ambient light and flicker detection sensor is available to order in production volumes. An evaluation board is available on request from ams. 

Improved colour sensing and flicker detection capabilities

The TCS3410 features high-sensitivity, low noise Red/Green/Blue (RGB), clear and flicker detection channels, high-accuracy correlated colour temperature (CCT), and ambient light measurement at levels down to 1mlux. Increased adjustable gain up to 4096x results in excellent low light performance for flicker detection and ambient light sensing.

Improvements in flicker detection capability have also extended the range of flicker frequencies detected up to 7kHz at up to 11-bit resolution. 

With the improved sensitivity and sampling rate, the TCS3410 enables a smartphone to detect flicker with much higher frequency at lower light.

By completely re-engineering the circuit and package, ams has also made it easier for smartphone manufacturers to accommodate the sensor in the bezel area. Increased pixel sensitivity means that the die area occupied by the photodiodes has been reduced with no loss of overall sensitivity compared to the earlier generation of ALS products. In the TCS3410, the photodiodes are also located at one end of the package, so that the area which needs to be exposed to ambient light, for instance in the camera aperture, can be as small as 0.28mm2. 

Operating from a 1.8V supply, the TCS3410 features a configurable sleep mode for low average power consumption. The sensor includes an I2C interface for communication with a host processor in Fast mode at up to 1Mbit/s.