Date: 31/05/2012

Single chip ultrasonic signal conditioner from TI for automotive parking distance applications

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) has introduced a fully integrated, programmable solution for driving ultrasonic transducers in automotive park distance, blind-spot detection or similar object detection applications.

The PGA450-Q1 comprises of a configurable burst generator, low-noise amplifier and 12-bit successive-approximation-register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The single chip solution provides for processing the echo signals and calculating the distance between the transducer and the object. The PGA450-Q1 incorporates the physical layer for LIN 2.1 communications that gives flexibility in implementing any needed communication protocol.

Features:
a. Application specific standard product (ASSP): Eliminates the need of intellectual property or market agreements, displaces discrete-based systems and reduces design-cycles
b. Fully integrated system-on-chip: Includes regulators, dual NMOS low-side drivers, oscillator and a LIN 2.1 physical interface and protocol for interfacing
c. Programmable: Possesses configurable features such as burst generator, low-noise amplifier, 12bit SAR ADC, digital band-pass filter, and digital signal envelope detect.

The evaluation module PGA450Q1EVM includes cables, graphical user interface, and example firmware to use with the included sensor. The price of this evaluation module is $99.00.

The PGA450-Q1 comes in a TSSOP-28 package and is available now at a retail price of $2.60 in 1,000-unit quantities.