Product Overview

This module is based on TCS230 integrated circuit, a programmable color light-to-frequency converter. It has programmable color and full scale output frequency and communicates directly with a microcontroller.

The TCS230 programmable color light-to-frequency converter combines configurable silicon photodiodes and a current-to-frequency converter on single monolithic CMOS integrated circuit. The output is a square wave (50% duty cycle) with frequency directly proportional to light intensity (irradiance).

The light-to-frequency converter reads an 8 x 8 array of photodiodes. Sixteen photodiodes have blue filters, 16 photodiodes have green filters, 16 photodiodes have red filters, and 16 photodiodes are clear with no filters. The four types (colors) of photodiodes are interdigitated to minimize the effect of non-uniformity of incident irradiance.

All 16 photodiodes of the same color are connected in parallel and which type of photodiode the device uses during operation is pin-selectable.

Features

• Supply voltage: between 2.7V and 5V
• Optimal detection distance: 10 mm
• Communicates directly with a microcontroller
• High resolution conversion of light intensity to frequency