An ASM-based ASIC for automobile accelerometer applications

Cost and reliability are major considerations in automobile industrial products. These serve as the key driving forces to design low-cost digital-controlled accelerometer interfaces. This paper proposes a cost-effective capacitive accelerometer interface ASIC that adopts ASM methodology to implement an application-specific digital controller for automobile applications. The ASM approach has the advantages over other digital techniques in terms of self-documentation and easy of design. In addition, a new way of independent self-testing of the capacitive accelerometer that is based on inherent slow mechanical response time of the acceleration sensor is presented.