Chipworks

After a morning of roaming the halls looking at new phones, tablets and cameras I finally got into the hall where the semiconductor giants who power all of these new consumer toys were exhibiting. They are all here; Qualcomm, Intel, Marvel, Atheros, Texas Instruments, Synaptics, Invensense and Atmel to name a few. These exhibitors show off their chipsets by way of demonstrating many of the same new toys found on the other floors. They also exhibit their newest and recently, or soon to be released, devices in mock ups of products that will soon come to market.

I’ll start with Invensense, a supplier of MEMS inertial sensors.

In our recent blog and teardown articles we have made much of STMicroelectronics success in the inertial sensor market because they had design wins in several recent flagship products. But the other players have been able to score some big successes also in this rapidly growing MEMS market. This includes smaller, more focused companies like Invensense, at who’s suite I had a chance to visit with Mike Housholder, Director of Marketing, and David Almoslino, Product Marketing Director.

I saw some recent design wins for the ITG-3200 3 axis MEMS gyroscope – on which we have done several reports. For instance; LG has incorporated the ITG-3200 into their TV remote controls, the remote control points to menu buttons on the screen much like a Wii mote operates. Other design wins discussed were the new LG Optimus Black. The Optimus Black was just announced at CES, making it a really good example for Invensense to be showing off. I had a chance to see this phone in action and it is yet another example of the already widely reported, full court press against Apple’s dominance in the touchscreen smartphone space.  Good for Invensense is that several reviewers have already been impressed with the way the 9 degrees of motion sensing is used by the UI for the Optimus Black.

Acer Iconica Tab A500

(Image sourced from:tomshardware.com)

While Invensense seems to have gained some very good traction with their mature ITG products, they have not sat back and rested on these wins. Instead they have been very busy designing their new MPU-3000 and MPU-6000 series which they are now demonstrating to would-be customers. The MPU-3000 is a 3 axis gyro and the MPU-6000 is a six axis (X,Y, Z and Roll Pitch and Yaw) all into one MEMS device. That’s right. Not two separate MEMS sensors in one package, but according to Invensense, all six degrees of motion are in one MEMS device with an intelligent ASIC lid.

I am sure my colleagues back in the process lab will be looking forward to getting this device and taking some SEM image of the structures on this MPU-6000. In the way of design wins for the new MPU line of MEMS devices, Invensense tells us we should see products on the market this year that utlize these innovation packed devices. Way to go guys. Keep up the great work.

Next we’ll be discussing touch screen controllers for phones and tablets.