Recalling a brief history of the MEMS industry, ams is one designer and manufacturer of sensors and sensor ICs whose bread and butter still lies in the automotive sector. Despite the high volumes and low margins associated with automotive electronics, ams has been able to achieve market leadership by producing a range of solutions for automotive subsystems such as ADAS, transmission, power steering, gas pedals, and motor control.

Heinz Oyrer, Senior Marketing Manager, BL Position Sensors at ams, notes that there are billions of inefficient electronic motors (emotors) in vehicles today, from stepper motors to BLDC motors, that contribute to cars’ overall CO² emissions. To make these more economical, ams has introduced a line of stray field-immune magnetic position sensor platforms with an onboard ASIC that can be used monitor automotive emotors and ensure optimum performance.

[Figure 1 | ams magnetic position sensors are shielded from stray field interference and include an ASIC that allows them to monitor the performance of electronic motors within vehicles.]

Outside of emotors, ams is also seeing its position sensors being used in consumer markets. Shown here is one of the cooler demos at the show – a robot programmed to do Tai Chi and other choreographed movements using 36 ams position sensors.

[Figure 2 | This robot performed Tai Chi on the show floor, made possible by 36 integrated position sensors from ams.]

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