A Novel CPU based Architecture for an Integrated Optical Sensor

This paper proposes a novel CPU based architecture for an integrated optical sensor used in smartphones. An integrated optical sensor consisting of an ambient light sensor and a proximity sensor is designed using the proposed CPU based architecture. The paper also compares the architectural and performance difference between an existing Finite State Machine (FSM) based optical sensor, and the proposed CPU based optical sensor. In the first phase of the research work, the existing FSM based optical sensor architecture is studied. The area, power consumption, hardware flexibility and performance of the FSM based architecture is analyzed. Then, CPU based architecture is defined. The ARM CORTEX M0+ processor is used as the CPU and the AMBA AHB-lite bus protocol is used to connect the processor to the peripherals. In the second phase of the research work, different digital blocks are designed and are interfaced with the processor. The proposed architecture is then synthesized and the experimental results are analyzed.