MCUs transmit tyre pressure data

Microcontroller-transmitter ICs feature sensor interfaces for tyre pressure monitoring sensor gauge systems.

Atmel Corp has released the highly integrated and low-power ATA6285 and ATA6286 microcontroller-transmitter ICs with sensor interface for tyre pressure monitoring (TPMS) sensor gauge systems.

The new devices include all necessary building blocks to support the measurement and calibration of simple capacitive pressure and motion sensors plus the complete RF transmission functionality.

These are the first such devices on the market.

The new ICs enable the development of cost-effective applications by allowing the system designer to freely choose simple, low-cost, noncalibrated sensors.

These capacitive sensors can be calibrated very easily and with minimum effort by the customer's firmware within the integrated AVR microcontroller.

As a result, the external sensors can be less sophisticated and smaller.

This also makes the new ICs very well-suited for sensor manufacturers who wish to develop their own integrated sensor modules.

The single-package devices combine Atmel's ATA5756 and ATA5757 RF transmitters with Atmel's well-known, low-power, ATmega AVR 8bit Flash microcontroller family.

The new ICs are designed to control and transmit data gained from capacitive pressure and motion sensors.

Their high functionality, such as integrated temperature sensor with shut-down mode, 90kHz slow-oscillation mode for timer wake-up in sleep mode, and LF input with several header options, makes them an excellent fit for pressure sensor systems.

The new devices are optimised to ensure extremely low current consumption: in sleep mode it is as low as 0.5uA.

The maximum sleep-mode current consumption is 0.85uA at 85C in 90kHz slow-oscillation mode, whereas the current consumption during sensor measurement is as low as 200uA which is about 10 times less than piezoresistive sensor solutions.

In transmission mode, the typical current consumption is 8.5mA at 6dBm.

The programmable, integrated 125kHz wake-up receiver channel consumes less then 1.7uA in active listening mode.

The ATA6285 operates at 315MHz, whereas the ATA6286 is used for 433MHz operation.

Both devices are suited for ASK and FSK transmission with a datarate of typically 10Kbaud in Manchester mode.

The parts can be operated at 2 to 3.6V from a single Li-cell power supply at an operation temperature of -40 to +125C and a storage temperature of -40 to +150C.

First samples in QFN32 packages are available now, and high-volume production will start in mid 2007.

Pricing for the ATA6285 and ATA6286 starts at US $2.60 each (at 50,000-unit quantities).

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