Sensors Changing the Way We do Business

Freescale’s Senior VP and GM of the RF, Analog & Sensor Group, Tom Dietrich, joined us for another year at the Summit.  Tom is always at the forefront of what is trending in the semiconductor industry and this year was no different as he introduced us to Freescale’s vision of a sensor-based future.

Over the next few years Freescale sees the future changing the world, and Freescale will be leading the change as they focus on four growth markets: Automotive, Networking, Industrial, and Consumer while they leaverage three growth trends: The Net Effect, Health & Safety, and Going Green.

For the consumer market we can see how sensors are changing the way we interact with our electronics just by looking at the iPhone and the top ranking apps.  Games now rely on the touchscreen, some rely on tilting the phone, others respond to shaking.  Add this in with networking and we have Cloud Computing.  For example in Japan, a good way to use sensors in cell phones is to have an earthquake app that can combine data from everyone’s phone to a central hub where the data will be analyzed to predict more accurately when and where the next earthquake will occur.  And considering that seismologists are warning of another magnitude-8 quake, this is a feature of sensors that can save lives.

Another feature for the consumer market Tom discussed was Augmented Reality for games.  For example, with sensors, a gamer at home may compete with the pros on the course, using the pros real time moves to compete against in their game.

In the automotive industry, Tom discussed how sensors will help cars, namely with radar, to have a cooperative highways, where cars will proactivity monitor other cars’ locations in order to stop accidents before they can occur. Another life saving feature changing the way we interact with hardware.

Even the healthcare industry benefits from sensors, with in-home monitoring becoming more widely available, allowing doctors and nurses to monitor a patient’s health and quickly react to changes.

While all these ideas are exciting to the average consumer, for Freescale, sensors are a puzzle to solve in how to add more capability to sensors, while continuing to rely on minimal power.  And it looks like they’ve done it.

Michell Prunty,

SR Consumer Analyst