STMicroelectronics Announces System-Friendly Ambient Light and Color Sensing Solutions for Lighting Control and Optical Feedback

STMicroelectronics Announces System-Friendly Ambient Light and Color Sensing Solutions for Lighting Control and Optical Feedback

STMicroelectronics has announced its first highly-integrated light and color-sensing IC intended for a wide range of optical feedback and sensing applications, including mobile phones, notebook PCs, and LCD TVs. The new VM6101 is the first product in the market to offer both color and ambient light sensing, with an embedded system interface that needs no external components – a cost-saving feature for manufacturers. The VM6101 is ideal for automatic LCD backlight control (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (CCFL) or white LED).

Compact and highly-integrated brightness and color-sensing chip to improve performance of portable display products with cost-effective LCD backlight control

The battery life of portable display products such as DVD players, camcorders, and digital cameras, mobile phones and laptop PCs, is highly dependent on the power used by the LCD and on its brightness setting. These sensors, with a standard I²C/SMBus (System Management Bus) interface, are easily integrated into any system to enable the LCD to be adjusted automatically to match ambient lighting conditions.

The light sensor is the first in a new series of imaging products, developed using the technical expertise of ST’s Imaging Division in the fields of CMOS imager-on-chip devices and color processing for camera applications.