Freescale unveils uber-thin 3-axis accelerometer

Make no mistake about it, accelerometers have certainly been all the rage of late, and Freescale Semiconductor isn't missing its chance to cash in on the bonanza. The firm has recently announced what it calls the "world's thinnest 3-axis digital-output accelerometer" for use in motion-based user interfaces, and it checks in at around "77-percent smaller" than existing offerings. The MMA7450L is available in a 0.8-millimeter thin plastic land grid array, eliminates the need for a dedicated analog-to-digital converter, includes three g-select sensitivities, and is almost ready to rock in tomorrow's most diminutive controllers, handhelds, and mobile handsets. Currently, only major manufacturers are getting their hands around samples, but general availability of the $2.66 device (when you order 10,000, that is) is expected by Q3 of this year.

[Via TGDaily]

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 6:28AM]

Hmmm... let me check this part number on the system.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 8:22AM]

Have they ever put one of these thingy in a smart celly? Seems like you could navigate around and make calls with one hand?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 9:55AM]

What does that thing do again?

[jou Posted Jun 12th 2007 2:36PM]

"Have they ever put one of these thingy in a smart celly?"

Yeah, years ago something called "MyDevice" had accelerometers:

http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=547

[ran Posted Jun 12th 2007 10:45AM]

This detects acceleration in a certain direction. Say you drop the laptop and the hard drive is stopped. Now these can be integrated into the hard drives themselves.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 12th 2007 12:00PM]

This is pointless news. Acclerometers and other parts are always going to get smaller, and I feel that Engadget thought would be "cool" to report something as "leet" as the latest developments in acceleromters. They probably saw the wiimote a few months ago with an accelerometer and figured that they now had the divine obligation to report the latest developments. I estimate that fewer than five percent of the readers can even interface to anything with I2C/SPI. Engadget, this is not your field and stop trying to act like it is. Stick to the cell phones, latest macs, and other user news.

[jsmrekar Posted Jun 12th 2007 12:10PM]

not pointless for electrical engineers who work in the industry. Whether it be for collision tests in cars or laptops.

[rektide Posted Jun 12th 2007 2:24PM]

i'm jonesing all over freescale products. when do we get general availability on your sweet new integrated zigbee uc? this is just yet another soft product release for stuff i want to be playing with now.

the one thing i'd comment on most, i think freescale should provide documentation as soon as possible. giving your close partners access to the chips six months ahead of time is ok, but at least have the decency to let everyone else start designing for these new solutions. otherwise we're stuck deciding whether we want to use someone elses chips, or whether we can lower ourselves to use your old last gen technology. let us lay out our boards now and solder your shit on 6 months down the road when its available. business and electronics move too fast for us to play anywhere but hte cutting edge and these 6 month lead times do great damage to your company.

[azrunner Posted Jun 12th 2007 9:24PM]

WOW!!!!! COOOOOOOLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!

Will this be available at Best Buy? I think I'll go camp out in front of the Best Buy down the street waiting for it to come out. That way, I'll be the first one on my bloc to have one. :)

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY Posted Jun 14th 2007 12:02AM]

I can definitly see them adding these to electronic stability control systems in automobiles, so when a vehicle exibits too many Gs in a certain direction. Also they can be used in Aircraft as a type of warning/alert system. Plenty of other uses for these outside of games and vehicles, but not enough time to discuss.


-G.E.