Renesas Introduces Advanced Signal Conditioner IC Targeting Industry 4.0, Medical and IoT Sensor Applications

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, recently introduced the ZSSC3240 sensor signal conditioner (SSC)—the newest member of its leading-edge SSC portfolio. 

The ZSSC3240 delivers high accuracy, sensitivity, and flexibility for sensor applications such as resistive pressure sensors and medical infrared thermometers. This new SSC features best-in-class performance and speed with up to 24 bits analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) resolution.

With a flexible sensor front end and a broad range of output interfaces, the ZSSC3240 can be used for nearly all types of resistive and absolute voltage sensor elements, enabling customers to develop complete sensing platforms from a single SSC device. 

This combination plus its small size makes the ZSSC3240 ideal for use with a wide variety of sensor-based devices for the industrial, consumer, and medical markets, including industrial pressure transmitters, HVAC sensors, weight scales, factory automation devices, smart meters, and continuous smart health monitors.

“With the ZSSC3240 SSC, we’ve combined best-in-class technology, know-how and leading-edge IP to provide a performance-leading, all-in-one solution that allows product designers to easily build complete sensing platforms based on a single device,” said Uwe Guenther, Senior Director of Sensing Solutions, Emerging Market Business Division at Renesas. “Customers can leverage the SSC’s leading performance, its small size, and especially its flexible configuration to realize the next generation of smart sensor-based devices for smart factories, smart buildings, smart energy, and smart healthcare.”

Micro-machined and silicon-based sensing elements provide mostly non-linear and very small signals, requiring special technologies to convert the sensor signal into a linearized output. The ZSSC3240 SSC facilitates both the design and production of sensor interfaces by providing programmable, highly accurate, wide gain and quantization functions combined with powerful, high-order digital correction and linearization algorithms. High performance, and flexible sensor front end configuration and analog output options enable easy sensor platform design using a single IC. This allows customers to leverage the SSC cost effectively for a wide variety of sensor elements that have different characteristics.

Key Features of the ZSSC3240 SSC

• Superior accuracy for compensated sensor results with up to 24 bits ADC resolution
• High-gain analog front end supporting up to 540 volt per volt (V/V)
• Integrated 26-bit DSP for high-precision sensor calibration
• 4-20 milliamps (mA) current loop output, analog voltage outputs, and digital interfaces as I2C, SPI and OWI
• On-chip diagnostics for medical and safety applications

Availability

The ZSSC3240 SSC is available now in a 4mm x 4mm, 24-lead QFN package with prices starting at $1.57 USD per unit in 10,000-unit quantities. The SSC is also available in bare die format.