Motorola ships 3D electric field imaging IC

Motorola Inc. has announced the availability of the MC33794 IC, which assists design engineers in the creation of embedded systems that require non-contact sensing and 3D electric field imaging.

Packaged in a 44-lead HSOP, the IC is claimed by the company to replace more than 70 components, thereby lowering part count and costs. It integrates support for a MCU and has up to nine sample electrodes, which can be used independently to provide information on the size or location of an object in a weak electric field.

Target applications include appliances, machine tools, automotive safety systems, and products that use touch panel inputs as a user interface.

The electric field imaging IC was developed through a collaborative effort between Motorola's Analog Products Division, Motorola's DigitalDNA Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and Elesys North America (formerly NEC Technologies Automotive Electronics Division). It is manufactured via the company's SmartMOS process.

Other features of the MC33794 include a high-purity tunable sine wave generator optimized for 120kHz; support for two reference capacitor; shield driver to reduce capacitance effects caused by coaxial cables; and a lamp driver.

MCU support includes a watchdog and power-on-reset timers, a voltage regulator, and an ISO 9141 physical layer communication interface.