Low-power sensor hubs for smartphones and wearables

Mouser is now stocking the BHA250 low-power sensor hub and BHI160 ultra-low power sensor hub from Bosch Sensortec. Designed specifically for always-on sensor applications in smartphones running the Android operating system, the BHA250 and BHI160 enable designers to offload sensor processing from the main processor, which can reduce power consumption and extend battery life. The sensor hubs integrate a best-in-class three-axis MEMS accelerometer (BH250) or six-axis gyroscope/accelerometer inertial measurement unit (BH160) with the new Bosch Sensortec digital signal processor, Fuser Core. The Fuser Core is a 32-bit floating-point microcontroller optimized to execute the device’s sensor fusion and activity-recognition algorithms with ultra-low power consumption — up to 95 percent less than that of other microcontrollers. They are specifically designed for applications in Android smartphones — implementing a full Android sensor stack inside the devices to provide a flexible, low-power solution for always-on motion sensing and sensor data processing. In both devices, the 32bit Fuser Core microcontroller features 96kB of ROM, including the BSX sensor fusion library, and 48kB of RAM for additional drivers, local data buffering, or feature updates. The devices provide up to three general-purpose input/outputs (GPIOs) and a high-speed I2C interface with data rates up to 3.4MBit/s for power-efficient data transfer. The devices meet the requirements of smartphones, wearables, and other applications that demand highly accurate, real-time motion data at very low power consumption.