Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions (TAOS) has introduced RGB digital colour sensors. The TCS3404 and TCS3414 digital colour light sensors with integrated red, green and blue (RGB) filters can derive the colour chromaticity and illuminance (intensity) of ambient light with 16bit of resolution for managing light-emitting diode (LED) and Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (CCFL) display backlighting. The applications of these sensors include televisions, industrial and commercial signage, architectural lighting, and embedded display calibration. These digital sensors can help white-colour balance display panel or captured image in diverse lighting conditions. These sensors can also be used to automatically adjust the display brightness of a backlight to extend the battery life, increase lamp life, and provide optimum viewing.
Both these devices are packaged in a six-lead chipscale package measuring 2.095х1.875х0.685mm. The chipscale package includes an internal infrared-blocking filter that eliminates the error resulting from the infrared spectral component of the light source while measuring light intensity and colour as the human eye sees it without the need for an external filter. The in-package trim capability minimises device-to-device and system-to-system tolerance that allows repeatability. These light sensors automatically eliminate signal fluctuation resulting from AC lighting flicker without an external capacitor.
Programmable analogue gain and integration time support a dynamic range of 1,000,000-to-1 in these sensors. A synchronisation input provides external control of the sensor's integration cycle allowing the internal conversion cycles to be synchronised to a pulsed or pulse-width-modulated light source. The synchronisation mode can either be internally timed or externally timed. The manual timing control feature can be used to manually start and stop the integration time period. The device can support free-running and serial-bus-controlled integration modes. These colour sensors have a wide operating temperature range of -40 to 85°C and provide a 16bit digital output with SMBus (TCS3404) at 100kHz or I2C (TCS3414) at 400kHz.
