Overview of new multi-channel spectral sensors

What is a spectral sensor? What is it used for? AS7341 provides multi-channel measurement and light source flicker detection functions with high sensitivity and small size, helping to improve the performance of applications such as color analysis, automatic white balance and color matching, and bring higher value .

China, January 9, 2019, ams AG (SIX Swiss Exchange stock code: AMS), the world's leading supplier of high-performance sensor solutions, today launched a miniature spectral sensor chip that can provide portable The device provides laboratory-grade multi-channel color analysis capabilities. In end products such as mobile phones or accessories, the new AS7341 from ams provides more accurate spectral measurements under a wider range of lighting conditions than competing products. The new sensor's small size makes it easier to integrate into cell phones and other portable devices.

"AS7341 is a representative product that has achieved a breakthrough in small package spectral sensor technology and is suitable for installation in mobile phones or consumer devices. It is the smallest among similar products and provides 11 measurement channels, which is comparable to other multi-channel spectral sensors for the consumer market. It has higher light sensitivity than the other," said Kevin Jensen, senior marketing manager of the optical sensor business line at ams.

The AS7341 chip provides precise spectral measurement, helping to achieve better automatic white balance, more reliable light source identification, and integrated light source flicker detection, which can bring many benefits to consumers, including improving the performance of mobile phone cameras. The technology reproduces colors more accurately and minimizes distortion from ambient light sources, resulting in clearer, more realistic photos. Using the PANTONE® color matching system, AS7341 also allows consumers to use their mobile phones to color-match fabrics and other objects according to their own color preferences.

Variable's Spectro 1™ portable colorimeter demonstrates the AS7341's ability to improve color measurement performance. Variable has implemented the AS7341 in the Spectro 1, providing professional-grade color measurement at an affordable consumer price. The product provides highly repeatable spectral curve data in 10nm increments over the visible spectrum range from 400nm to 700nm. This feature was previously only available in professional-grade spectrophotometers, but its cost is more than 10 times that of the portable Spectro 1.

“In our opinion, no spectral sensor IC offers the same multi-channel capabilities as ams’ AS7341 in such a small package size,” said George Yu, CEO of Variable. “Small size is a key advantage; integration with mobile applications is one of the highlights of Spectro 1, and we designed the product to be small enough to ensure it can be easily controlled with one hand. The AS7341 can provide multi-channel spectral measurement, which also means that Spectro 1 users You will never encounter a mismatch of metameric pairs.”

The AS7341 is a complete spectral sensing system in a 3.1mm x 2.0mm x 1.0mm LGA ultra-small aperture package. It is an 11-channel device capable of very accurately describing the spectral characteristics of directly measured light sources or reflective surfaces. Eight of the channels cover eight equidistant parts of the visible light spectrum. The device also has a near-infrared light channel, a pure channel, and a channel dedicated to detecting typical ambient light flickers (frequency 50Hz to 1kHz).

In addition to optimizing camera images, the AS7341 spectral sensor supports a variety of applications such as general color measurement of materials or liquids, skin color measurement, etc.

The AS7341 will be on display at CES 2019 (Las Vegas, Nevada, January 8-11, 2019), and samples are available now. Mass production will begin in February. Pricing is $2.00 per unit in quantities of 10,000 units. An evaluation board for the AS7341 spectral sensor is now available. The above is an overview of the spectral sensor, I hope it can be helpful to you.