MEMS accelerometer provides ultralow power for healthcare and industrial applications

Analog Devices, Inc. has released a three-axis MEMS accelerometer designed for many healthcare and industrial applications, including vital signs monitoring, hearing aids, and motion-enabled metering devices. The ADXL367 accelerometer enhances power consumption by two times versus a prior generation of the device (ADXL362) while enhancing noise performance by up to over 30%. The new accelerometer also delivers extended field time that maximises battery life and lowers maintenance frequency and cost.

The device consumes only 0.88µA at a 100Hz output data rate and 180nA when in motion-triggered wake-up mode. Unlike accelerometers that utilise power duty cycling to perform low power consumption, the device does not alias input signals by undersampling but rather samples the full bandwidth of the sensor at all data rates.

It also features deep multimode output FIFO, a built-in micropower temperature sensor, an internal ADC for synchronous conversion of additional analogue input, single/double-tap detection and state machine to prevent false triggering. It functions with supply voltages as small as 1.1V allowing for single-cell battery operation without external boost converters. It also includes external control of the sampling time and/or an external clock. Rich digital features are provided, such as single and double-tap, free fall, and activity detection, decreased computation demand for the host microprocessor, and further improved system power consumption.