Electromagnetic field sensor technology company Ontech Group has announced a significant breakthrough with the launch of a new family of 128-channel Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) designed to improve the technical capabilities and commercial benefits of its revolutionary Controlled Electromagnetic Field (CEMF) sensor.
Manufactured to meet market demands in growth industries such as health technology, wearable devices, and personal computing, the new ASICs deliver precision and flexibility. The new ASICs feature improved resolution, reliability, accuracy, and provide a larger sensing area per chip and a smaller form to simplify integration.
These advancements enable CEMF sensors to offer up to double the resolution and accuracy in a wider range of devices and applications compared to the leading short-range sensor technologies in this segment.
“The requests for new ways to overcome existing sensor limitations was the key driver in developing this new family of ASICs,” said Ontech CTO and Co-founder Dr Juan Aponte. “Our customers need to meet surging demand for features like high-resolution and high-precision 3D physicality sensing, low power consumption and easier integration. We have transformed our CEMF sensor technology to empower innovations that could redefine sectors such as health technology and personal electronics.”
Ontech’s new 128-channel ASIC builds on CEMF’s abilities to simultaneously detect, track, map, and measure external and internal features. It significantly boosts the existing commercial benefits of CEMF in a wide array of industries, including health technology, consumer electronics, robotics, wearables, power tools and IoT/ IIoT.
The new 128-channel ASIC family builds on the standards set by Ontech’s previous 32-channel ASIC. Improved capabilities of the 128-channel family include a compact 1.5 mm2 form factor, HV-CMOS technology with 0.13μm, voltage up to 3.3V, flexible scan sequences of up to 32 steps, and an acquisition frequency of up to 2GHz. Additionally, peripheral blocks such as LDOs, clocks, and references have been integrated to minimise the PCB space required for customers to incorporate the CEMF sensor. At the same time, the new ASIC core itself is designed for a high degree of application-specific customisation.
Ontech has secured confidential collaborations with leading consumer, industrial, and technology companies to use the new ASICs. These partnerships pave the way for a leap forward in human-machine interaction.
“We are excited to see how our customers will leverage these chips to create innovative solutions that will shape the future of human-machine interaction,” said Ontech CEO and Co-founder Martin Wikstroem. “One customer is creating a novel gesture-controlled personal device that demands spatial sensing in high-definition at very close range, works in any light, through obstructions, and complies with strict biometric privacy rules.”
