Optical sensor combines ambient light, proximity, and flicker sensing

Enabling OEMs to design smartphones without a bezel, ams has claimed the industry’s first optical sensor that integrates ambient light sensing, proximity detection, and flicker detection sensing in a single module for operation behind an OLED display screen in a bezel-less smartphone. The TMD3719 enables smartphone manufacturers to provide an extended display screen that covers the front surface of the smartphone.

The TMD3719 is the first module for ‘Behind OLED’ (BOLED) applications with the integrated functionality. Features can include displaying auto-brightness control in response to the lighting environment, proximity detection for touchscreen auto-off control during a call, and flicker detection for removing banding and other artifacts when camera image capture occurs in artificial light sources, said ams.

In addition to providing new functionality to consumers, the TMD3719 optical sensor helps designers simplify system design and reduce development effort by integrating the multiple sensors in a single device. This also includes the on-chip algorithms for flicker detection under artificial light sources to remove artifacts in camera image capture, which provides a couple of key benefits. It removes the processing from the main application processor and reduces latency in flicker detection results.

The integrated optical sensor implements two new innovations to enable ambient light sensing and proximity detection in a BOLED display. These include the synchronization of the ambient light sensing with the display operation to extract the true light intensity and remove display emissions from the sensor’s light measurements, and three proximity infrared VCSEL (vertical cavity surface emitting lasers) emitters that allow power-emission optimization for best detection distance and distortion-free proximity operation.

The TMD3719 optical sensor is available in a surface-mount 6.35 x 3.00 x 1.00-mm package. It is available for sampling now. A demonstration board is available on request.

Last year,  ams introduced the TCS3701 RGB light and IR proximity sensor that can measure the intensity of ambient light from behind a smartphone’s OLED screen. This sensor also eliminated the need for front-facing bezels where an ambient light/proximity sensor is typically placed.