Rohm expands Emarmour to include high noise tolerant comparators
Believed to be the industry’s first ultra-high noise tolerant comparators, Rohm has added the BA8290xYxxx-C-Series of ground sense comparators to its Emarmour range.
The comparators enable high reliability and simpler designs of automotive systems, says the company. They deliver tolerance against EMI (noise resistance) for sensor applications in automotive systems such as engine control units (ECUs) and powertrain.
They are needed in vehicle design, because advances in computerisation and the increase of densely packed electric devices increases the amount of noise in electric vehicles (EVs) and cars equipped with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), explains Rohm. However, evaluation of noise performance of individual boards and systems, and implementing measures against noise are not feasible in isolation during the development phase. Measurement and implementation need to be done after the car has been assembled, but this makes the process of optimisation against noise a very lengthy and costly process that might require several iterations.
Rohms’ operational amplifiers, based on proprietary Emarmour technology are noise tolerant and help to reduce design resources to implement measures against noise. The BA8290xYxxx-C-Series are claimed to be the first ultra-high noise-tolerant comparators using the technology.
The capacitors achieved superior noise tolerance when used as comparators to determine the threshold value of sensor output signals, Rohm reports. It ensures an output voltage fluctuation within ± one per cent across the entire noise frequency band when testing according to the ISO11452-2 standard. Conventional comparators usually have output voltage fluctuations of up to ±20 per cent due to noise, which can lead to malfunctions (high/low inverted). The BA8290xYxxx-C-Series are not susceptible to noise, providing greater reliability while reducing system design man-hours by reducing the amount of time needed for noise evaluation and measure implementation that typically require the use of external filters.
The BA8290xYxxx-C series is qualified under the automotive reliability standard AEC-Q100 and reduces both current consumption (0.6mA versus 0.8mA) and offset voltage (±5mV versus ±7mV) compared to conventional products.
The comparators are offered in a variety of common surface mount packages and channel counts with standard comparator pin layout.
