The hottest sensor fusion will further become the

Sensor fusion will further become the norm

it is obvious from the European MEMS sensors summit recently held in Grenoble, France that sensors have become more and more complex, exquisite and extremely intelligent, and continue to be popularized in all fields of modern life. As sensors continue to collect huge amounts of data in order to automate vehicles and make cities and factories smarter, we see many demands and data privacy issues about sensor fusion, edge artificial intelligence (AI), and more and more medical applications combined with biosensors

the keynote speakers and participants participating in this event warmly discussed the powerful sensor ecosystem currently developing in Europe. For example, we recently reported that an alliance is developing a mid infrared photon IC for detecting gas leakage; British researchers have designed a device that can pair a handheld CMOS sensor with an Android mobile app, which can easily measure chronic heart disease or prostate cancer at a low cost. Earlier this year, we also reported Oura health, which encapsulates PPG sensors in rings to measure various heart rate parameters; Oticon integrates sensors and processing capabilities in its hearing aid products to expand functions other than hearing aids

at this year's summit, industry leading enterprises such as Bosch sensortec, Infineon, NXP and STMicroelectronics (st) all emphasized that their diversified sensor solutions are suitable for various applications from wearable technology to automatic driving, and their technologies are displayed and presented to mirsense, irlynx Innovative or emerging companies such as xenomatix and tusk IC that develop sensor technology provide a platform

obviously, this part is related to st's focus on the core automotive and industrial markets, but it also reflects the fact that Europe still plays a key role in R & D for many building blocks of these vertical industries

this annual meeting is actually divided into two parts: one part discusses MEMS and sensors, and the other part focuses on image sensors. However, from the perspective of ultimate intention and goal, it is a conference on sensors, and the key of sensor fusion is to emphasize that the system depends not only on one sensor, but also on multiple sensor inputs. Whether it is an autonomous vehicle, a smart city, a future factory or medical care, the sensor subsystem usually contains a variety of sensor types from different sources - measuring parameters such as temperature, pressure, proximity and location, as well as various chemicals and gases, in order to achieve a closed-circuit system for tracking, interpreting and feeding back relevant information

this is most obvious in the automotive industry. It must deploy the combination of vision, radar and other sensors at the same time to help developers ensure users that the vehicle can drive safely in the automatic driving mode

Lars Reger, senior vice president of NXP and chief technology officer of the electronics business unit, said that sensors occupy the most important semiconductor value in autonomous vehicles. Moreover, in order to absolutely ensure safety, the combination of visual and radar imaging sensors provides drivers with greater confidence to produce an integrated structure

Luc bourgeois, engineering director of advanced driving assistance system (ADAS) and automatic driving (AD) system of Renault, also talked about the need to use complementary sensor technologies including car-to-x, radar, light mine, camera and sonar. He emphasized the role of sensor fusion in building a digital representation of the perceived world, which is not only conducive to better grasp, further make decisions and analyze risks, especially the role of big data and artificial intelligence in achieving this goal

although it has promoted the development of fully autonomous vehicles, we must also consider the reality. Claus habfast, vice chairman of Grenoble Municipal Committee, said in a briefing on smart cities with expanded functions that vehicles in many European cities have been unable to drive completely automatically for many years. He said that smart mobility is a key element of every smart city strategy. Driverless vehicles or even autonomous vehicles (Cavs) must rely on seamless communication with other vehicles, as well as sensors and external infrastructure for data processing

however, he said, "this trusted CAV infrastructure is not yet in place. Someone must deploy and operate it, and get the investment reward from the CAV owner and/or user. Now no one can point out who will be responsible for this problem in the city, nor how to generate income and distribution." He added: "when CAV must coexist with ordinary vehicles, if it eventually develops into a luxury vehicle, it will only worsen the traffic and traffic congestion." Nevertheless, he believes that due to the extensive mass transport customer base in Europe, urban authorities are ready to play a leading role in the development of CAV infrastructure

does Apple create/kill the fingerprint sensor market

a few years ago, I used to drive a Tesla on the Lawrence Expressway highway in California (this car was borrowed from Sundari Mitra, CEO of netspeed systems, who recently sold the company to Intel). Like others, I felt that this car was like an "iPhone with 4 wheels" (iPhone on placed sample wheels in xenon lamp aging tester)

time quickly turns to the present and looks forward to the future. Michael Alexander, a partner of Roland Berger, a market consulting company, pointed out that consumers' expectations for this kind of intelligent human-computer interface to achieve personal information, entertainment and services not only continue to promote the demand for sensors, but also create a platform integration for vehicles and consumer electronics. Coupled with the emergence of more and more sensor needs such as identification, security, data integration and analysis, a general ecosystem connecting smart devices and IOT platforms will be able to further adjust and deploy in multiple industries, such as automotive, financial services, health care or medical applications

manuel Tagliavini, chief MEMS and sensor analyst at IHS Markit, described how Apple created the fingerprint sensor market in just four years from 2013 to 2017 and then killed it. He said that the effect of iPhone x would eliminate more than 900million fingerprint sensors on the market by 2021. The company predicts that with the increase of screen size, fingerprint sensors will be gradually integrated into the display. For example, Chinese OEMs such as vivo are actively adopting display fingerprint sensing technology

in the light sensor market, the time of flight (TOF) sensor will dominate, among which ST has most of the market, so it can also be called the spring tension and compression experimental machine, while Apple uses the TOF sensor to replace the IR sensor for partial detection - Apple's use is an expensive custom component on iPhone X. Apple iPhone x uses a combination of near infrared (NIR) Omni sensing components of TOF and truedepth cameras and is applied to face recognition. In addition to apple, he said that other OEMs such as Samsung, Huawei, oppo, vivo and Xiaomi are reportedly working on developing similar faceid systems, but using standard TOF components or most groups of low-cost TOF

according to Eric Mounier, a senior analyst at yole D é velopment, due to the far-reaching influence of smart cars,, 5g and industry 4.0, several general trends of the electronic industry are driving the progress of the MEMS sensor market

mounier predicts the next development trend of MEMS sensors, such as ingestable sensors for medical care and diagnosis

another focus of this annual summit is that as sensor technology continues to strive to meet the cost and miniaturization needs driven by consumers and end users, today, like the broader semiconductor industry, this technology is rapidly evolving

although smart mobility continues to drive the MEMS and sensor market, which is expected to reach $100 billion in 2023, more work remains to be done on various "consumer" sensors from healthcare to industrial markets. Obviously, sensor fusion or the use of multiple types of sensors will further become the norm, especially to create a high-precision digital environment. To this end, the sensor itself will also be embedded with more processing and intelligence