Supporting industrial design trends to maximize smartphone display area by eliminating front-facing bezels, where an ambient light/proximity sensor is typically located, ams launches the TCS3701, an RGB light and IR proximity sensor IC that can accurately measure the intensity of ambient light from behind an OLED screen. The component enables smartphone manufacturers to achieve the highest possible ratio of display area to body size while retaining crucial touchscreen disablement and automatic display brightness/color adjustment functions, which require an RGB/infrared light sensor.
Operating behind an emissive OLED display screen, the TCS3701 senses the addition of the ambient light passing through the display to light emitted by the display’s pixels located just above the sensor. Unique algorithms enable accurate detection of ambient light levels without knowledge of the display pixel brightness above the sensor.
The sensor measures 2 mm x 2.5 mm x 0.5 mm in a OQFN package, small enough to be placed behind a smartphone’s OLED screen. The TCS3701 is available for sampling now. Unit pricing is $1.25 each/1,000. For more specs and illumination, peruse the TCS3701 datasheet.