Freescale Semiconductor has expanded its range of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)-based sensors with a 3-axis digital-output accelerometer which is claimed to be one of the thinnest accelerometers on the market.

The MMA7450L is available in a 0.8mm thin plastic land grid array package. It can communicate with the MCU on both I2C and SPI interface buses.

The MMA7450L enables an array of motion-based functions, such as tilt scrolling, gaming control, tap to mute and freefall hard disk drive protection.

According to Demetre Kondylis, v-p and general manager of Freescale's Sensor and Actuator Solutions division: “We have achieved a 77 per cent reduction in package size and combined three axes of sensing direction with digital output, eliminating the need for an A/D converter and external memory.”

Designed to provide a digital output, the MMA7450L embeds features, such as threshold and pulse or click-detect for quick motion detection and offset calibration, eliminating the need for external memory.

The MMA7450L includes a g-select feature with three sensitivities (2g, 4g, 8g).