Solutions for Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems

Abstract

The demand for tire pressure monitoring systems is driven by increasing comfort and safety requirements. In order to make such systems available to a wide market, cost optimized solutions are necessary. Costs can be reduced by high integration, low power consumption, small size of the module and the reduction of components by monolithically integrated and intelligent on-chip algorithms.

To meet these requirements Infineon is developing highly integrated tire pressure sensor chips fabricated in a 0,5µm BiCMOS technology. The pressure sensor cells are realized in a surface micromachining process which allows the integration of complex electronic circuits as well as memory to store calibration data, configuration data and an identification number. A unique wake-up algorithm is implemented to eliminate the need for an additional wake-up switch or acceleration sensor.