CMOS Sensors : Various CMOS Sensors

OTHER CMOS SENSORS

• CMOS Humidity & Temperature Sensors

Swiss-based Sensirion AG has introduced an integrated, digital humidity and temperature sensors using CMOS “micro-machined” chip technology. SHT11 is a single chip RH and temperature sensing module with a calibrated digital output fabricated

using CMOS technology.

Conventional humidity sensors determine relative air humidity using capacitive technology. However they suffer from poor long-term stability and complicated calibration. In addition, they require additional circuitry to convert analogue output to be interfaced with microprocessors, etc.

SHT11 uses a micro-machined finger electrode system with protective and polymer cover layers forming the capacitance for the sensor chip as well as simultaneously protecting the sensor from interference. The sensor chip can be interfaced directly to any microprocessor system by means of the digital 2-wire interface.

As the temperature sensor and the humidity sensor are integrated in a single unit, it removes measurement errors due to temperature gradients between the two sensing elements. The sensor offers high noise immunity, good stability, short response times, high precision, low power consumption, and has a small footprint

• 3D Imaging Sensor

DepthSense™ sensor is a patented CMOS chip from SoftKinetic DepthSense for 3D Imaging. It uses time-of-flight principle and provides a direct way for acquiring 3D information of objects enabling new applications such as gesture recognition. Such sensors are being integrated in cameras.

KODAK 9000 3D Panoramic System is another 3D imaging system for dental applications. With an impressive focused-field 3D, it can generate different types of facial images.

• CMOS X-ray Detectors

Flat panel CMOS X-ray detectors from Dexela are based on innovative crystalline Silicon based CMOS sensor design offering unprecedented speed and superior image quality. The detectors are suitable for a range of applications including mammography and tomosynthesis, angiographic imaging, bone densitometry, dental CBCT, scientific instrumentation and NDTs.

The major advantages of the technology are: high frame-rate, low noise, high reliability, absence of image lag and high spatial resolution. The clinical benefits are lower radiation dose to the patient combined with superior image quality when compared with flat panels based on amorphous Silicon sensor technology. Dexela uses the flexibility, speed and low noise of CMOS technology to create detectors that are flexible, faster, more sensitive, higher resolution and more stable than TFT based flat panel detectors

The main components of this detector are: CMOS image sensor, scintillator, control electronics, readout electronics and communications devices.

• CMOS Microhotplates

Cambridge CMOS Sensors provides innovative MEMS high temperature microhotplate technology for gas sensing, flow sensing and lab-on-a-chip applications. Technology uses standard CMOS process that enables high volume, low cost and low power sensor-on-a-chip solutions

• CMOS sensor for fluid flow

Burkert Fluid Control Systems uses CMOS technology for mass flow rate measurement of the gas by measuring the temperature differential.

It uses a Si chip in one place with an exposed diaphragm on the walls of the flow channel. A resistor is connected to the diaphragm; two temperature sensors are installed at upstream and downstream of it.

If the heating resistor is supplied with an excitation voltage, the voltage differential of the temperature sensors provides mass flow of the gas flowing through the channel.