(STMicroelectronics, ST) has introduced a new inertial sensor with a built-in intelligent sensor processing unit (ISPU) to drive the era of onlife (always-on) living, where people interact with trained smart devices and smart technology moves from the network edge to deep edge devices. 

The ISM330ISN always-on 6-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor is embedded with intelligent technology that delivers industry-leading measurement performance and accuracy for its size and power consumption. ST's new IMU is ideal for IoT and industrial applications, accelerating response times and extending the battery life of devices for predictive maintenance condition monitoring, battery-powered asset trackers, robotics and other industrial applications. 

The ISM330ISN's built-in intelligence technology empowers smart devices to perform advanced motion detection functions in sensors without interacting with an external microcontroller (MCU), thereby reducing system-level power consumption. ST's approach is to integrate a dedicated processor ISPU optimized for machine learning applications directly on the sensor chip. This smart core takes up a very small chip area, so the package area of the ISM330ISN module is 50% smaller and consumes 50% less power than typical sensor solutions that integrate an MCU in the package. 

Developers can program the ISPU with ST's market-proven artificial intelligence tool NanoEdge AI Studio, which many customers have used to deploy AI applications on STM32 microcontrollers. Now that the technology can be used to program ISPUs, users can easily generate automatically optimized machine learning libraries. Very little data is required and anomaly detection libraries with AI learning capabilities can be designed directly within the ISPU with just a few mouse clicks. Developers do not need to have specialized data learning skills. 

Intelligence, once deployed on application processors at the edge of the network, is now moving inside sensors at the deep edge," said Simone Ferri, general manager of marketing for ST's Analog MEMS and Sensors product group. , for example, pattern recognition and anomaly detection, greatly improving system energy efficiency and performance." 

While demonstrating the new creative opportunities presented by AI, the ISM330ISN also features the same 3mm x 2.5mm x 0.83mm package size as traditional inertial modules. As a result, designers can quickly and economically upgrade their products without changing the existing board layout. 

The ISM330ISN is part of ST's 10-year product life warranty program, providing product designers and manufacturers with a long-term supply guarantee. 

Detailed technical information 

The ISM330ISN is a member of ST's iNEMO IMU inertial measurement unit family, integrating a tri-axis accelerometer and a tri-axis gyroscope with low-noise sensing performance and an output data rate (ODR) of 6.6 kHz. 0.59mA of current in combined accelerometer and gyroscope mode. 

Based on a digital signal processing (DSP) architecture, ST's ISPU is extremely compact and energy efficient, with 40KB of RAM memory and only 8000 logic gates on the sensor chip. 

ST's ISPU and NanoEdge.AI tools are finalists for the Embedded Hardware Award and Software Award, respectively, at Embedded World 2022, just held in Nuremberg, Germany, June 21-23 (ST booth #148, Hall 4A). 

The ISM330ISN is scheduled for production in the second half of 2022 and is available from ST's e-store st.com or from resellers. the NanoEdge AI Studio tool enables the creation of machine learning libraries optimized specifically for specific ISPU models. The software tool is available as a free download from ST.com.