Combo sensors fit wearable devices

Two combination accelerometer-gyro sensors, the KXG07 and KXG08 from Kionix, a subsidiary of Rohm, provide six axes of motion sensing. Both devices feature a configurable low-power architecture and a large 4096-byte FIFO buffer with timestamps for use in gaming systems, smart phones, and wearable devices. by Susan Nordyk  @ edn.com

Unlike conventional sensor signal-detection methods based on amplitude detection, the KXG07 and KXG08 use a proprietary phase-detection scheme that contributes to smaller designs, while enabling full high-speed operation of the onboard accelerometer, gyroscope, and temperature sensor at power consumption levels as low as 0.2mA, allowing for always-on operation. Each device offers I²C and SPI digital outputs with user-programmable gyroscope full-scale ranges of ±64°/s, ±128°/s, ±256°/s, ±512°/s, ±1024°/s, and ±2048º/s and user-programmable accelerometer full-scale ranges of ±2 g, ±4 g, ±8 g, and ±16 g.