Melexis announces another upgrade to its TOF product solutions for vehicles

     Melexis has announced a major upgrade of its Time of flight (ToF) technology for the automotive industry, cementing Melexis' position as an industry leader in the development and production of time-of-flight sensors for automotive applications. The portfolio now includes the next generation QVGA ToF sensor chipset, the MLX75024, and the upcoming VGA ToF sensor, the MLX75123BA. The latest developments help Melexis create even more powerful products to meet the growing demand of automotive customers for advanced in-vehicle sensing solutions.

     The new sensors comply with the AEC-Q100 standard and are suitable for a variety of automotive applications such as gesture recognition, driver monitoring and pedestrian/obstacle detection. Compared to the previous generation, the new MLX75024 ToF QVGA sensor has double the sensitivity, while maintaining the original industry-leading resolution (320 x 240 px) and ambient light tolerance. As a result, the sensor can operate at lower brightness or reduce the required lighting power by at least 30%.

     Power consumption is reduced by 50%, while system efficiency is further improved, and the camera can be more compact due to improved heating. New and optional gain features enable designers to make trade-offs between lighting power, precision and ambient light tolerance. Thanks to these improvements, the SNR is twice as good in low light conditions and at a distance of one meter. One further improvement is the integration of an on-chip temperature sensor, which reduces system size and cost.

     To support the latest MLX75024 QVGA ToF sensor, Melexis has specially developed the MLX75123BA ToF companion chip, which has three times better front-end noise than the previous companion chip. The companion chip is used to configure parameters such as pixel gain and supports pixel merging, which simplifies hardware and software configuration in low-resolution applications. In addition, a single MLX75123BA can be used to support two MLX75024 sensors at the same time, further reducing system cost, complexity and the overall size of the dual-head ToF camera. Melexis has also developed a comprehensive evaluation kit (EVK75024) to support the new QVGA ToF chipset. The kit is available now.

     As in-vehicle monitoring systems continue to evolve, future applications will require increasingly demanding resolution and integration solutions. The new fully integrated VGA sensor developed by Melexis will help you meet these needs. This market-leading sensor is based on a backside illuminated (BSI) ½ "640 x 480 pixel array. An evaluation kit for the new automotive VGA ToF sensor will be available in early 2019, when initial samples will also be available for automotive customers.

     Speaking about the new product launch, Gualtiero Bagnuoli, Marketing Manager for Optical sensors at Melexis, said: "In 2014, Melexis introduced the world's first time-of-flight sensor, which has been well received by the market, and the new generation of QVGA ToF chipsets have further improved performance, with better sensitivity, higher integration, richer features and lower power consumption. We've kept the dimensions of previous generations to make it easy for existing customers to upgrade, and we've developed a comprehensive evaluation suite to help designers reduce lead times and save money when developing solutions for new projects. The new automotive VGA ToF integrated sensor brings together our years of experience in ToF technology and demonstrates our commitment to putting our customers first."