ams Osram introduces the industry's first ultra-compact ambient light sensor with UV-A detection

     ams and Osram, the world's leading provider of optical solutions, announced the launch of an ambient light sensor, the TSL2585, featuring proprietary UV-A light detection technology. The corresponding UV channel of ams Osram's TSL2585 can detect the amount of UV-A radiation in natural light, and will alert the user when the UV-A radiation is excessive. The extremely compact size of this sensor makes it ideal for space-constrained wearable applications and other mobile applications. 

     While Earth's atmosphere blocks the UV-C portion of sunlight, UV-A and UV-B radiation can reach the Earth's surface. Among them, UV-A radiation accounts for about 90% of the ultraviolet components reaching the earth's surface, and can penetrate deeply into the lower epidermis of the skin, causing serious health effects in some cases, such as weakening connective tissue, accelerating skin aging, increasing risk of skin cancer, etc. Using ams Osram's new ambient light sensor, smartwatch users can receive immediate warnings when the UV-A radiation levels in the environment are too high.

     Barry Guo, Marketing Manager at ams Osram, said: “The TSL2585’s short integration time and high sensitivity allow it to reliably detect ambient light even when placed under low transmittance materials and OLED screens. Its small package size and design greatly improve the This gives manufacturers industrial design freedom.” This ambient light sensor uses ams Osram’s advanced interference filters, which are precisely deposited on each photodiode pixel to create a 315nm-400nm UV-A channel, Human eye responsive photopic and IR channels. They provide the necessary information for indoor and outdoor identification, UV index calculation and ambient illuminance detection. In addition, the photodiode of the TSL2585 adopts a unique off-center arrangement, which enables it to support narrow bezel designs.

     The TSL2585 integrates light source flicker detection and is equipped with three modulators with sampling rates up to 14kHz. By providing illuminance and ambient light strobe information to the phone camera, it supports fast auto-exposure for smartphone cameras and eliminates the ripple effect caused by ambient lighting strobes.

     It features an ultra-low profile package with a compact size of only 2.0 mm x 1.0 mm x 0.35 mm for space-saving system design and helps manufacturers design extremely compact devices. The sensor operates at 1.8V and draws only 0.7µA when inactive.