InvenSense Announces World’s First Dual-Interface Mainboard 6-Axis Sensor With OIS-Macro Support

Jul. 28, 2016–InvenSense, a leading provider of MEMS sensor platform solutions, announced the ICM-20690, a mainboard 6-axis sensor (3-axis accelerometer + 3-axis gyroscope) with concurrent motion user interface (UI) and optical image stabilization (OIS) support. The sensor supports macro image stabilization (OIS-Macro), pioneered by InvenSense for high-resolution lifelike photography of intimate objects. The ICM-20690, an all-in-one sensor for motion, OIS, EIS, and AR applications, has been in the evaluation and design-in phase at several OEMs for the past 6 months and is the first 6-axis dual-interface sensor entering production now with a tier 1 OEM.

In the past two years, smartphone OEMs have been focused on creating high-value new user experiences, such as macro and multi-camera 3D photography and Augmented Reality (AR). With this IC, InvenSense enables a flexible camera architecture in the premium smartphone market that has traditionally used dedicated 6-axis sensors for motion UI and 2-axis sensors for OIS smartphones. The sensor architecture of ICM-20690 enables an efficient cost structure for the OEMs since it will not require OIS production calibration as required with dedicated 2-axis solutions in today’s smartphones. Further, it provides this solution without any performance compromise as compared to dedicated solutions.

The ever-increasing need for offering the best imaging experience and the high gyroscope performance requirements for Augmented Reality applications such as Pokémon Go™ has necessitated the need to offer the best 6-axis performance from flagship to mid-tier smartphones. In particular, the ICM-20690’s stability, sensitivity, and responsive real-time performance are key in the seamless creation of augmented and virtual reality worlds for excellent user experience.

Equally, the proprietary symmetrical architecture of the dual paths, makes ICM-20690 the perfect solution for 360° virtual and augmented reality applications as it can be used in a dual-camera application with synchronized and precise motion tracking on both interfaces.

“Many consumers have complained about poor user experience playing Pokémon Go, such as slow response times to rotation, as well as image and character, drift on handsets with no gyroscope or a sub-standard gyroscope,” said Eitan Medina, vice president of marketing and product management at InvenSense. “Based on our experience and strong position in both imaging and the nascent AR/VR eco-system, we have applied our latest high-performance MEMS and innovative digital architecture to the next-generation mobile handsets.”

Finally, ICM-20690’s fundamentally superior performance and stability also provide a more accurate navigation and pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) performance with accurate tracking of user’s motion for longer periods of time and improving GPS location accuracy in urban canyon environments.