Recipients Honored for Ingenious Sensor Application
SANTA ANA, CA October 1, 2006 – Sensors, the premier publication dedicated to sensors and sensor-related technologies, has announced that Freescale Semiconductor Inc.’s Inertial Sensor Applications Team has won the magazine’s inaugural “Engineer of the Year” Award.
The editors of Sensors magazine presented the inaugural award to the Inertial Sensor Applications Team—consisting of Michelle Kelsey, Leticia Gomez, Rod Borras and Akihiro Ueda—for their development of a reliable system and method for detecting free-fall of portable electronics products, including computers, PDAs, cellular phones, and digital music players.
In an effort to reduce data loss and damage when portable devices are accidentally dropped or mishandled, Freescale’s team of engineers designed an accelerometer-based system that identifies the condition of the fall and alerts the device to suspend operation and/or save data, reducing damaging impacts to sensitive components. Freescale’s fall-detection application is not limited to personal electronic devices. Other applications include human body fall detection, shipping and handling monitoring, wireless sensor networking, and black boxes/event recording.
“When we heard about this application of sensor technology we were so inspired that we set about to find the people who developed it,” says Barbara G. Goode, Editor in Chief of Sensors. “Free-fall detection is a perfect application for sensor technology—and something the electronics industry sorely needed. Previous methods have had limited success, but using multiple accelerometers and a processor, the Inertial Sensor Applications Team has enabled reliable and efficient fall detection even in the presence of other motion.”
Sensors magazine announced the “Engineer of the Year” award program in honor of a young engineer, Eamonn Dillon, who represented his team at Analog Devices by accepting a Best of Sensors Expo award last year just days before his accidental death. Inspired by Eamonn’s enthusiasm and unrealized potential, the editors of Sensors launched the “Sensors Engineer of the Year” award to recognize an individual or group of individuals whose exemplary work advances the relevance and impact of sensor technology.
Freescale’s Inertial Sensor Applications Team will be featured in the October 2006 issue of Sensors magazine in print and online. Freescale’s inertial sensor products can be accessed at: http://www.freescale.com/xyz
About Questex:
Questex Media Group is a global, diversified business-to-business integrated media provider, headquartered in Newton, Mass. Questex Media serves multiple industries including technology, travel, beauty, home entertainment, landscaping, and industrial and specialty markets through a range of well-established, market-leading products and services. The company’s properties include 23 trade publications and 25 conferences and tradeshows, as well as a host of databases and online media brands. Questex Media has more than 400 employees in offices throughout North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe.
About Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (NYSE:FSL, FSL.B) is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. Freescale became a publicly traded company in July 2004. The company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale, a member of the S&P 500®, is one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies with 2005 sales of $5.8 billion (USD). www.freescale.com.
Contact: Dana Fisher, Group Publisher, Questex Media Technology Publishing Group 714-338-6729
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