Extremely Low Power Current for Bridge Sensor

The ultra-low power microcontroller with the PICOSTRAIN measuring principle enables an ultra low overall current consumption of the total system. It is possible to reduce the power consumption by a factor 10 to 20 compared to conventional Analog-to-Digital-Converter solutions. Measures: half-bridge, full-bridge, quattro-bridge, and Wheatstone.

One Solution for Low Cost to High Precision

PS081 allows for system builds with 1.500 ... 150,000 peak to peak divisions (at 2mV/V strain) and update rates up to 1 kHz. One and the same chip covers the requirements of many applications, just by variation of the software.

Reduced Overall System Costs

PS081 reduces or saves battery costs. In many applications a single coin cell battery may last for 10 years under normal operation. The number of external components is far below the usual.

New Products Are Now Possible

There are new product options mainly due to the low current consumption and low operating voltage. Now solar weigh scales and 1.55 V silver-oxide batteries are possible. The measurement quality is impressive even at those low voltages. It might be difficult to find something comparable in the market.

Improved Quality

PS081 offers unique possibilities to simplify the production of the bridge sensor for improved quality. The bridge offset can be simply adjusted by setting a register, gain drift can be reduced through software correction of Rspan. This method is more precise than with standard solutions. At the same time costly mechanical trimming, wich is still common practice, becomes redundant.