4
ST/Industrial Sensing Solutions
Continuous Innovation in
Industrial Sensors
Current Consumption
There have been significant efforts to reduce the
current consumption of sensors to meet the require-
ments of battery-operated solutions. As Figure 1
demonstrates, a gyroscope introduced in 2009 had a
current consumption of more than 6mA. There was a
repeated demand pushed upon sensor suppliers from
customers to come up with innovative sensor solutions
with significantly lower current consumption.
Sensors suppliers responded to this demand with great
solutions and thanks to sensor suppliers such as STMi-
croelectronics (ST), the latest modules, which include a
three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyroscope
consumes about 0.5mA under similar sensor settings
with much better performance compared to the
previous generations of these devices. Reducing the
By Jay Esfandyari, Ph.D., Senior Manager, MEMS & Sensors Product Marketing at STMicroelectronics
There have been continuous
significant improvements and
embedded innovation in Micro-
electro-Mechanical-Systems
(MEMS)-sensors. Listed below is a
summary of significant advances that
have taken place over the last ten
years (Figure 1).
Figure 1: An Overview of Advances in MEMS Sensors over a decade
