A six-member family of temperature sensor ICs from Microchip Technology Inc., designated EMC118X, is said to be the world's first family of temp sensors with 1.8 V SMBus and I2C™ communications, required for interfacing to the latest generation of smartphone, tablet and PC chipsets. Additionally, this integrated low-voltage I/O support reduces cost and board space because it is accomplished without an external voltage level shifter. These are also the first temp sensors to use an advanced sample-frequency-hopping filter, which enables temperature-monitoring traces of up to 8 inches in noisy environments with accurate readings. The EMC118X family serves a broad range of applications in the mobile, commercial and embedded computing markets, by combining the above features with options for dual, triple and quad temperature monitoring, along with hardwired system-shutdown settings that can't be overridden by software.
The latest generation of smartphone, tablet and PC chipsets utilize advanced process geometries, which have a 1.8 V upper voltage limit for I/O signals. There are few temperature sensors with 1.8 V I2C/SMBus interfaces, and the EMC118X is the first family to provide this capability, along with a flexible set of integrated feature options. It is also difficult to extend analog traces near noisy components, such as DC/DC converters and backlight inverters. The EMC118X family employs frequency-hopping on the sampling frequency, which avoids the injection of coherent noise and enables traces of up to 8 inches while maintaining accurate temperature readings. Microchip also introduced the EMC1182 Evaluation Board (part # ADM00516) today, to enable development with these new temp sensors. This board is available now for $ 29.99, from microchipDIRECT and any of Microchip's authorized worldwide distributors.
All six members of the EMC118X temp sensor family are available today for sampling and volume production, starting at $0.51 each in 5,000-unit quantities. The EMC1182 is offered in 8-pin DFN and TDFN packages. The EMC1183, EMC1184, EMC1187 and EMC1188 are all available in a 10-pin DFN package. The EMC1186 is offered in an 8-pin TDFN package.
