At the 2021 Sensors Converge Conference and Expo, Fierce Electronics and Sensors Converge presented the 2021 Best in Sensors Awards in September. These awards recognize 13 of the most innovative companies and products.
This year’s finalist in the Industrial Sensors category was STMicroelectronics for its IIS2ICLX 2-axis digital inclinometer.
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For STMicroelectronics, the award represents a great achievement and a powerful motivator within the company. “We are elated to have received the 2021 Best in Sensors award in the Industrial Sensors category for our IIS2ICLX high-accuracy, low-power 2-axis accelerometer/inclinometer, as the recognition reinforces and highlights ST’s longstanding commitment to innovation and quality,” notes Simone Ferri, Director of MEMS Sensors Division Marketing, Application and Validation, Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group, STMicroelectronics. “Beyond seeing your sensor designs operational at the end of the manufacturing cycle, the two greatest motivators to product teams are customers and judges choosing to reward your efforts with sales and awards.”
The IIS2ICLX is a two-axis linear accelerometer with digital output. It offers high accuracy thanks to its stability over a wide range of temperatures (-40oC to +105oC) as well as repeatability. This makes the IIS2ICLX ideal for inclination measurement applications.
In addition, the IIS2ICLX has an advanced set of features, including a programmable finite state machine (FSM), Machine Learning Core, sensor hub, and first-in-first-out (FIFO). The result is a robust and powerful accelerometer that combines both high accuracy and low power — the unit can deliver full performance at 0.22 mA with two axes.
Practical applications for the IIS2ICLX include antenna pointing, platform leveling, construction machines, and sun-tracking for solar panels. In structural-health monitoring, the IIS2ICLX can help assess the integrity of tall buildings as well as tunnels and bridges.
The inspiration for developing the IIS2ICLX came as STMicroelectronics noticed a major gap in the industrial sensors market. “ST has been making 2- and 3-axis accelerometers for many years, starting with consumer applications and we saw the need for a higher accuracy device with edge-processing capabilities,” says Ferri, “We created the IIS2ICLX in consultation with several customers by adapting and applying technologies and techniques — including embedding our Machine Learning Core, which enables continuous event classification at very low power. We also improved stability and repeatability, reduced noise, and added our ten-year longevity assurance (from the marketing side) to meet that market need.”
At the same time, STMicroelectronics plans to constantly keep innovating for tomorrow. Ferri explains, “The IIS2ICLX will continue to see incremental improvements, consistent with its specifications, to assure customers who’ve designed it into their products that it’ll continue to operate in those products without redesign. These improvements are likely to be in better accuracy, stability, and repeatability. At the same time, we continue to innovate (in accelerometers and inclinometers and in all of our other product categories) to meet current and future customer needs. Some of these innovations will support more data processing at the sensor level, to reduce system-level power consumption and latency.”
STMicroelectronics creates chips and semiconductors that are used everywhere, from toothbrushes to smartphones to industrial machinery. With over 46,000 employees and 100,000 customers worldwide, the company helps make devices more intelligent, more energy-efficient, more connected, more secure, and safer. Following its commitment to sustainability and a people-first approach to technology, STMicroelectronics aims to build products, solutions, and ecosystems that enable smarter mobility, more efficient power and energy management, and the wide-scale deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G technology.
Check online for a full list of finalists in the Best of Sensors 2021 Awards: