Infineon says its PSOC 4000T is the first device to feature the company’s fifth-generation CAPSENSE and Multi-Sense. The supported sensing technologies can be combined in a single PSOC 4 MCU to optimise performance (e.g., combination of capacitive and inductive sensing), enable new use cases (e.g., underwater inductive sensing buttons) or realise cost savings (e.g., system control plus liquid sensing). In addition, Infineon’s fifth generation CAPSENSE with “Always On” technology enables sensing at 10x lower power consumption and offers a 10x higher signal-to-noise ratio than previous devices.

“Multi-Sense capability is more than a technology advancement – it’s a paradigm shift and proof that Infineon is committed to supporting customer demands for next-generation devices that support new HMI and sensing use cases,” said Vibheesh Bharathan, Director and Project Lead for PSOC 4 Multi-Sense, Infineon.

“As a leader in sense and control for consumer and industrial markets, we continue to bring new features to enable customer designs of tomorrow’s digitalization solutions for home, office and industrial applications.”

Infineon’s new Multi-Sense capabilities in the PSOC 4 family include:

• Inductive sensing – Based on a new and proprietary methodology which is less sensitive to noise and more robust than current state of the art approaches that suffer from external noise as well as manufacturability concerns. Infineon’s inductive sensing technology enables new HMI use cases, such as touch-over-metal, force touch surfaces and proximity sensing. It is highly complementary to capacitive sensing and enables modern, metal-based and waterproof designs with sleek form factors such as metal touch buttons on refrigerators or robust HMI for underwater devices such as cameras and wearables.

• Liquid sensing – Non-invasive and non-contact liquid sensing capability with AI/ML based processing algorithm in PSOC 4 enables more cost-effective and accurate sensing than mechanical sensors and typical capacitive solutions. It is resistant to environmental factors such as temperature and humidity and can detect liquid levels with up to 10-bit resolution in various shapes of containers. The solution offers even more features that other liquid sensors cannot solve such as foam rejection, residue rejection and reliably work with varying air gaps between sensor and container. Liquid sensing on PSOC 4 brings more intelligence to applications managing liquids such as robot vacuum cleaner, soap dispensing in washing machine, coffee machines, humidifiers, etc.

• CAPSENSE hover touch – Hover touch sensing supports new use cases where a direct touch of a button is not required. Hover touch can eliminate multiple components in certain applications such as springs and gaskets in cooktop touch panels. By bridging the airgap with hover touch, customers achieve significant bill-of-material (BOM) savings, while realizing increased system performance, reduced design complexity, and faster time-to-market.