The AP and Australia's Herald Sun talk motion control with STM
The Herald Sun recently ran a piece discussing the innards of the Wii’s Wiimote and Nunchuck remotes. Featured in this article was an interview with Benedetto Vigna, head of STMicroelectronics‘ MEMS unit.
Vigna offers a good explanation of their device:
“When you wave around the new Nintendo controller, two tiny, flat pieces of silicon inside it, each weighing about a millionth of a gram, flex against silicon springs that hold them in place.
“The movements are minute, or to put it another way, they are on the scale of 10 to 100 hydrogen atoms stacked side by side.
“But these tiny movements can be measured with incredible accuracy. A charge is applied between the moving pieces of silicon and two nearby sensors.
“Faint fluctuations in that charge, as small as that of 10 electrons, are picked up by a chip that translates it into an understanding of how the controller is moving.
“The two moving weights, which fit together on an area less than a millimetre square, have different roles.
“One has two sets of springs, which allow it to move from side to side and back and forth. The other weight is a flat piece anchored almost like a trampoline. It senses vertical movement. This way, the chip can distinguish motion in all three dimensions of space.”
Read the whole thing here.
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