TAOS Announces RGB Digital Color Light Sensors with Infrared-Blocking Filter

Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions, Inc. has announced the RGB Digital Color Sensors. The TCS3404 and TCS3414 Digital Color Light Sensors with integrated red, green and blue (RGB) filters can derive the color chromaticity and illuminance (intensity) of ambient light with 16-bits of resolution for managing light-emitting diode (LED) and Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (CCFL) display backlighting. Applications that will benefit from these capabilities include televisions, industrial and commercial signage, architectural lighting, and embedded display calibration.



The TCS3404 and TCS3414 devices can help white-color balance a display panel or captured image in diverse lighting conditions and manage RGB LED backlighting to maintain color consistency over an extended period of time. They 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 in diverse lighting conditions. Both devices are packaged in a six-lead chipscale package, providing a very small footprint that measures 2.095 mm by 1.875 mm with a height of only 0.685 mm. The TCS3404 and TCS3414 automatically eliminate signal fluctuation resulting from AC lighting flicker without an external capacitor. Programmable analog gain and integration time support a dynamic range of 1,000,000-to-1 in the TCS3404 and TCS3414. A synchronization input provides precise external control of the sensor’s integration cycle allowing the internal conversion cycles to be synchronized to a pulsed or pulse-width-modulated light source. The synchronization 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.



The TCS3404 and TCS3414 have a wide operating temperature range of -40 degrees Celsius to 85 degrees Celsius and provide a 16-bit digital output with SMBus (TCS3404) at 100 KHz or I2C (TCS3414) at 400 KHz. Pricing for the TCS3404 and TCS3414 is $2.29 in quantities of 1,000 pieces.