Renesas Unveils Easy Liquid and Solid Material Detection Solution

Renesas Electronics Corporation introduced its Material Detection Solution, which can detect materials or liquids easily and cost effectively without sensors by connecting electrodes using Renesas' RX130 capacitive touch-key microcontrollers (MCUs). Replacing the sensors with this electrode approach contributes to lower bill of materials (BOM) costs while enabling detection at multiple points using a single chip. This allows industrial equipment, OA equipment, and home appliance manufacturers to explore detection systems for cost-constrained applications.

Renesas’ touch-key MCUs feature a capacitive touch sensor unit specialized for capacitance measurement with extremely high sensitivity and high noise resistance. This enables the Material Detection Solution to easily detect the presence or absence of a powder such as vacuum cleaner dust, a liquid such as refrigerator and coffee maker, or material such as paper by measuring the capacitance between electrodes to the MCU. The increase or decrease of the powder, liquid, or material will change the capacitance value between the electrodes (more info).