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RGB UV IR light sensor is under 1x2mm

Called VD6281, it is claimd to be the smallest ambient light sensor available – at 1.83 x 1.0 x 0.55mm.

Filter material over internal diodes creates six colour channels – red, green, blue, near-infra-red, ultra-violet A and clear – with a viewing angle of 120° degrees, enabling accurate assistance for white-balance algorithms, even in difficult conditions including low contrast scenes, low light levels, or exotic artificial lighting. – UVA information, according to ST, can help the camera determine whether the user is indoors or outdoors and assist image colour rendering under artificial or natural light.

“Our roadmap for ambient light sensors and flicker sensors is an ideal complement to ST’s time-of-flight [range measuring]product portfolio,” said ST general manager Eric Aussedat. “With a growing number of high-quality, high-resolution cameras per phone, our goal is to offer an advanced solution to assist white-balance correction and remove flicker artefacts in smartphone camera images. Mobiles equipped with VD6281 were already released in 2018, and others will be coming soon.”


It can work to as low as 1mLux, and in less than 8ms (One frame at 120frame/s), and consumes less than 1mW when ambient light sensing.

Sensitivity is such, claims the firm, that it can be integrated behind the phone camera cover-glass, inside an optical module with another companion chip or flash LED, or through an opaque phone back cover.

Flicker detection comes from an internal ‘patented flicker engine’, said the firm, that works across 50Hz to 2kHz with better than 3% accuracy – including with LED lighting PWM square signals. Flicker information is output in both analogue and digital format in parallel with ambint light data. “In conjunction with algorithms and host-processing, it is able to detect multiple light frequency harmonics in a scene to capture pictures or video clips without the banding effect, even in scenes with a complex mix of conventional lighting sources, including tungsten, halogen, neon, fluorescent, and LED.”

The reflowable package has six pins, communication is throught I2C and an Android software driver is available.