Texas Instruments PGA460 Signal Processor and Transducer SoC | Featured Product Spotlight
TI’s PGA460 is a highly integrated ultrasonic signal processor and transducer SoC that can be used for object detection and distance sensing in automotive, drone, IoT, and industrial applications, with the flexibility to be used in transformer-based or direct drive topologies for transducer excitation.
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Texas Instruments PGA460 Signal Processor and Transducer SoC
TI’s PGA460 is a highly integrated ultrasonic signal processor and transducer SoC that can be used for object detection and distance sensing in automotive, drone, IoT, and industrial applications, with the flexibility to be used in transformer-based or direct drive topologies for transducer excitation.
The PGA460 integrates a pair of complementary low-side output drivers, amplifiers, ADC, DSP core, and a power block that generates a precision voltage reference, current bias, digital supplies, and an internal clock.
The integrated FETs can be used in one of two ways: they can drive a transducer in a transformer-based topology, or they can be used with an external p-channel MOSFET for direct driving of the transducer. The SoC supports transducers with resonant frequencies in two bands. For automotive and consumer applications, 30 to 80 kHz transducers provide a 1 cm resolution and a 30 cm to 5 m range. For higher resolution applications, 180 to 480 kHz transducers can be used for resolution down to 1 mm in ranges from 5 cm to 1 m. The device also has a gate driver that can be used with an external transistor for time or temperature decoupling.
The analog front-end consists of a low-noise amplifier, a programmable gain amplifier, and a 12-bit ADC. The PGA460 varies the gain of the programmable amplifier over time, which maximizes the ADC’s dynamic range for near- and far-field objects. This improves the signal-to-noise ratio for objects at all distances, improving the accuracy of time-of-flight measurements.
The DSP core performs additional signal processing, such as filtering, rectification, and scaling, and it applies a time-varying threshold to accurately detect objects.
The PGA460 communicates over a high-voltage time-command interface, one-wire USART, or CMOS level USART, and configuration parameters are stored in nonvolatile memory. The PGA460-Q1 is the AEC-Q100 qualified variant for automotive applications.
To learn more about TI’s PGA460, as well as additional resources including the evaluation module with transducers, visit Mouser.com.
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