Sensor module and assembly method

Abstract

The invention provides a sensor module and an assembly method. The sensor module comprises a circuit board and at least two sensor monomers which are packaged on the circuit board and have the same structure, wherein the sensor monomer comprises a substrate, a detection chip arranged on the substrate and a pin bonding pad; the pin bonding pads are exposed and distributed on two mutually vertical side walls of the sensor single body and are used for being connected and conducted with the circuit board; the position relation between the sensor single bodies and the circuit board is adjusted by changing the setting direction of the sensor single bodies, so that signals in different directions are detected through different sensor single bodies. According to the invention, signal detection in different directions can be realized through a plurality of sensor monomers with the same structure.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of multi-axis sensors, and more specifically, to a sensor module and an assembly method thereof. Background Art

[0002] In traditional sensor packaging design, surface mount is generally used. The pad is located at the bottom of the sensor, and the solder paste is used to form an electrical connection with the PCB to complete the sensor function. Therefore, the application of the sensor is strongly correlated with its installation direction. For example, in the current application scenario of the acceleration sensor chip, the single-axis acceleration sensor can only sense the acceleration signal in a single direction, and the sensing direction is usually perpendicular to the PCB. If the product needs to test the acceleration signal in other directions, the conventional solution is to use an acceleration sensor chip that supports two or three axes.

[0003] However, compared with single-axis acceleration sensors, two-axis or three-axis acceleration sensors have higher design difficulty and manufacturing process requirements, resulting in a long development cycle for multi-axis sensors and significantly increased costs. Therefore, for the increasingly competitive sensor application market, how to reduce the cost of modules and realize the functions of multi-axis sensors through single-axis sensors is a technical problem that needs to be solved urgently. Summary of the invention

[0004] In view of the above problems, the purpose of the present invention is to provide a sensor module and an assembly method to solve the technical problems of the existing multi-axis sensors, such as difficult manufacturing process, high cost, and inability to realize the multi-axis sensor function through a single-axis sensor.

[0005] The sensor module provided by the present invention comprises: a circuit board and at least two sensor units with the same structure packaged and arranged on the circuit board; wherein the sensor unit comprises a substrate, a detection chip arranged on the substrate and a pin pad; the pin pad is exposed and distributed on two mutually perpendicular side walls of the sensor unit, and is used to connect and conduct with the circuit board; by changing the setting direction of the sensor unit, the positional relationship between the sensor unit and the circuit board is adjusted, so that signals in different directions can be detected by different sensor units.

[0006] In addition, an optional technical solution is that the sensor unit is in the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped, including a first group of pin pads arranged on a first side wall, and a second group of pin pads arranged on an adjacent side wall of the first side wall; the detection chip is conductively connected to the first group of pin pads and the second group of pin pads.

[0007] In addition, an optional technical solution is that the first group of pin pads includes a number of regularly distributed first pins, and the second group of pin pads includes second pins distributed corresponding to the first pins respectively; the first pins and the second pins at the corresponding positions are an integrally formed structure.

[0008] In addition, an optional technical solution is that the exposed parts of the first pin and the second pin at the corresponding position on the sensor unit are distributed in an L shape.

[0009] In addition, an optional technical solution is that the length of the first pin or the second pin on the corresponding side wall accounts for 1 / 3 to 1 / 2 of the length of the corresponding side wall.

[0010] In addition, an optional technical solution is that the detection chip includes a MEMS chip and an ASIC chip that are electrically connected to each other; wherein the ASIC chip is mounted on the substrate and electrically connected to the substrate, and the MEMS chip is mounted on the substrate or on a side of the ASIC chip away from the substrate.

[0011] In addition, an optional technical solution is that a direction mark is provided on the sensor unit; the direction mark is used to indicate the installation direction of the sensor unit on the circuit board.

[0012] In addition, an optional technical solution is that the direction mark includes an arrow, an indicator mark or a color.

[0013] In addition, an optional technical solution is to further include a micro control unit arranged on the circuit board; wherein the sensor unit is connected to the micro control unit via a TDM interface, a PDM interface, an I2C or an SPI interface.

[0014] On the other hand, the present invention provides a sensor module assembly method for assembling the above-mentioned sensor module, the method comprising: selecting a sensor unit of corresponding packaging and material number according to the detection direction of the target signal of the sensor module; welding and fixing the pin pads of each sensor unit on a circuit board according to the direction mark on the sensor unit; packaging the sensor unit and the circuit board to complete the assembly of the sensor module.

[0015] By utilizing the above-mentioned sensor module and assembly method, sensor units with the same structure are set. By improving the pin pads of the sensor units, the installation direction of the sensor units on the substrate can be adjusted. That is, by changing the setting direction of the sensor units, sensor units at different angles can detect signals in different directions, thereby realizing multi-axis multiplexing of single-axis sensors, and reducing the overall manufacturing cost and difficulty of the sensor module.

[0016] In order to achieve the above and related purposes, one or more aspects of the present invention include the features that will be described in detail later. The following description and the accompanying drawings describe some exemplary aspects of the present invention in detail. However, these aspects indicate only some of the various ways in which the principles of the present invention can be used. In addition, the present invention is intended to include all these aspects and their equivalents. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0017] By referring to the following description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and with a more comprehensive understanding of the present invention, other objects and results of the present invention will become more clear and easy to understand. In the accompanying drawings:

[0018] Figure 1 is a structural schematic diagram of a sensor module according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0019] Figure 2 FIG. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of a sensor unit according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0020] The reference numerals are: circuit board 1 , sensor unit 2 , sensor unit 3 , sensor unit 4 , pin pad 5 .

[0021] The same reference numerals throughout the drawings indicate similar or corresponding features or functions. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0022] In the following description, for the purpose of illustration, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of one or more embodiments, many specific details are set forth. However, it is apparent that these embodiments may also be implemented without these specific details. In other examples, for ease of describing one or more embodiments, known structures and devices are shown in the form of block diagrams.

[0023] In the description of the present invention, it is to be understood that the terms “center”, “longitudinal”, “lateral”, “length”, “width”, “thickness”, “up”, “down”, “front”, “back”, “left”, “right”, “vertical”, “horizontal”, “top”, “bottom”, “inside”, “outside”, “clockwise”, “counterclockwise”, “axial”, “radial”, “circumferential”, etc., indicating orientations or positional relationships based on the orientations or positional relationships shown in the accompanying drawings, are only for the convenience of describing the present invention and simplifying the description, and do not indicate or imply that the referred device or element must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and therefore should not be understood as limiting the present invention.

[0024] It will be understood by those skilled in the art that, unless otherwise stated, the singular forms "a", "an", "said" and "the" used herein may also include plural forms. It should be further understood that the term "comprising" used in the specification of the present invention refers to the presence of the features, integers, steps, operations, elements and / or components, but does not exclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components and / or groups thereof. It should be understood that the term "and / or" used herein includes any unit and all combinations of one or more associated listed items.

[0025] It will be understood by those skilled in the art that, unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as those generally understood by those skilled in the art in the art to which the present invention belongs. It should also be understood that terms such as those defined in common dictionaries should be understood to have meanings consistent with the meanings in the context of the prior art, and will not be interpreted with idealized or overly formal meanings unless defined as herein.

[0026] In order to describe the sensor module and the assembly method of the present invention in detail, the specific embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0027] Figure 1 and Figure 2 The schematic structures of the sensor module and the sensor unit according to the embodiments of the present invention are respectively shown.

[0028] Specifically, Figure 1 and Figure 2 As shown together, the sensor module of the embodiment of the present invention includes a circuit board 1 and at least two sensor units with the same structure packaged and arranged on the circuit board 1; wherein the sensor unit includes a substrate, a detection chip arranged on the substrate and a pin pad; the pin pad is exposed and distributed on two mutually perpendicular side walls of the sensor unit, and is used to connect and conduct with the circuit board 1; by changing the setting direction of the sensor unit and adjusting the positional relationship between the sensor unit and the circuit board 1, signals in different directions can be detected through different sensor units, thereby realizing multi-axis multiplexing of single-axis sensors, and the assembly is simple and the cost is low, and signal detection in two-axis or multi-axis directions can be realized.

[0029] Among them, the structures of the sensor monomers are all the same and can be set to a rectangular structure, including a substrate, a detection chip arranged on the substrate and a pin pad. The detection chip includes a MEMS chip and an ASIC chip that are conductive to each other; wherein the ASIC chip is mounted on the substrate and conductive to the substrate, the MEMS chip is mounted on the substrate or on the side of the ASIC chip away from the substrate, and the pin pads on the substrate can transmit the sensor signal by wire bonding. After packaging with materials such as epoxy resin, local pin pads will be exposed to ensure that multiple sides of the sensor monomer can participate in welding.

[0030] Specifically, the above-mentioned MEMS chip is mainly used to sense external signals and convert the sensed external analog signals into electrical signals. The ASIC chip is mainly used to perform signal modulation such as filtering on the electrical signals transmitted by the MEMS, and convert the modulated signals into digital signals in a fixed format and transmit them to circuits outside the sensor through pin pads for analysis and processing, wherein the signal output can be in digital signal formats such as TDM, PDM, I2C, and SPI.

[0031] Furthermore, the pin pads of the sensor unit may further include a first group of pin pads arranged on the first side wall, and a second group of pin pads arranged on the adjacent side wall of the first side wall, and the first side wall and the second side wall are perpendicular to each other; the detection chip is connected to the first group of pin pads and the second group of pin pads, and when the first group of pin pads of the sensor unit is connected to the circuit board 1, the sensor unit can collect signals in one direction, and when the second group of pin pads of the sensor unit is connected to the circuit board 1, the sensor unit can collect signals in the second direction, and the first direction and the second direction are perpendicular to each other.

[0032] Among them, the first group of pin pads includes a number of regularly distributed first pins, and the second group of pin pads includes second pins distributed corresponding to the first pins; wherein the first pins and the second pins can be respectively connected to the substrate, or the two can be set as an integrally formed structure, and the specific pins can adopt various structural forms such as rectangular bars or circles.

[0033] In a specific embodiment of the present invention, the exposed portions of the first pin and the second pin at the corresponding position on the sensor unit may be distributed in an L shape, and the length of the first pin or the second pin on the corresponding side wall accounts for 1 / 3 to 1 / 2 of the length of the corresponding side wall to ensure the flatness and firmness of the pin pad when it is welded to the circuit board 1.

[0034] Since the structures of the sensor units are the same, when multiple sensor units are used to detect signals in multiple directions, a direction mark can be set on the sensor unit to facilitate confirmation of the detection direction of the sensor unit. The direction mark is mainly used to indicate the installation direction of the sensor unit on the circuit board 1. Figure 1 As shown, a circular direction mark is set at a corner position of the sensor monomer, and the main direction of the assembly personnel facing the circuit board 1 is used as a reference. When the direction mark is located at the lower right corner of the upper end surface, the sensor monomer 2 is used to detect the signal in the X-axis direction. The sensor monomer is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. At this time, the direction mark is located at the upper right corner of the upper end surface, and the pin pad 5 connecting the sensor monomer 3 and the circuit board 1 remains unchanged. The sensor monomer 3 is used to detect the signal in the Y-axis direction. Then the sensor monomer is further turned outward along the Y-axis direction toward the vertical screen side. The direction mark is located on the front side of the sensor monomer 4, and the pin pad on the other side wall is used to connect and conduct with the circuit board 1 to detect the signal in the Z-axis direction.

[0035] It can be seen that according to the detection requirements, a corresponding number of sensor units with the same structure are set, and combined with the direction marks thereon, multiple sensor units are set on the circuit board 1 at different angles, so that signal detection in multiple directions such as the X-axis and / or Y-axis and / or Z-axis can be realized at one time, and finally the sensor module can sense sensor signals in different directions, thereby realizing the multi-axis multiplexing function of the single-axis sensor.

[0036] It should be noted that the above-mentioned direction identification can be in the form of arrows, indicator marks or colors or a combination thereof, so that the assemblers can understand the detection direction of the sensor unit. In addition, the sensor units with different installation directions can be packaged and distinguished, that is, they are divided into two different packaging methods during packaging. The sensor units used to detect the sensing Z axis use one packaging and are equipped with a separate material number; the sensor units used to detect the sensing X and Y axes use another packaging and are equipped with a separate material number, so as to effectively distinguish and use the sensor units.

[0037] In the sensor module of the embodiment of the present invention, a microcontroller unit MCU is also included which is arranged on the circuit board 1; wherein the sensor unit can be connected to the microcontroller unit through various types of interfaces such as TDM interface, PDM interface, I2C or SPI. Among them, for the use case where the amount of data transmitted is large and the real-time requirement is high, each sensor unit can be connected using a TDM interface, which is composed of a BCLK clock IO, a SYNC clock IO and a DATA IO, and uses a data transmission method in TDM4 (a DATA IO transmits 4 channels of data based on the principle of time division multiplexing) or TDM8 format. The three sensor units are provided with unified BCLK and SYNC clock signals by the MCU, and the data of the three sensors occupy different channels for data transmission on the same data line.

[0038] In addition, the PDM interface can also be used to complete signal transmission. The typical interface can be a CLK Port and a DATA Port. For use cases where real-time requirements are not high and the amount of data is small, the I2C or SPI interface can be used. An SCL IO and an SDA IO are configured on the sensor unit for I2C communication. For the case where multiple sensor units work at the same time, the sensor module can add two additional ADDR (address) IOs. Through hardware design, the ADDR IO is selectively pulled high (connected to the power supply) or pulled low (connected to GND) to achieve the purpose of up to 4 sensor units completing the same I2C bus communication (four configurations of 00, 01, 10, and 11).

[0039] Corresponding to the above-mentioned sensor module, the present invention further provides a sensor module assembly method for assembling the above-mentioned sensor module.

[0040] Specifically, the assembly method of the sensor module includes: selecting a sensor unit with corresponding packaging and material number according to the detection direction of the target signal of the sensor module; welding and fixing the pin pads of each sensor unit on the circuit board according to the direction mark on the sensor unit; packaging the sensor unit and the circuit board to complete the assembly of the sensor module.

[0041] It should be noted that the embodiment of the assembly method of the above-mentioned sensor module can refer to the description in the sensor module embodiment, and will not be repeated here.

[0042] According to the sensor module and assembly method of the present invention, the sensor unit is welded after adjusting the angle, and the single-axis sensor can be used to measure the sensing data of other axes, thereby realizing the solution of using multiple single axes to replace one multi-axis sensor. Through the multi-axis multiplexing of the single-axis sensor, the overall manufacturing cost and difficulty of the sensor module are reduced, the assembly is convenient, and the application range is wide.

[0043] The sensor module and assembly method according to the present invention are described as an example with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, those skilled in the art should understand that various improvements can be made to the sensor module and assembly method proposed by the present invention without departing from the content of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention should be determined by the content of the attached claims.

Claims

1. A sensor module, characterized in that: include: A circuit board and at least two sensor units with the same structure packaged and arranged on the circuit board; wherein, The sensor unit comprises a substrate, a detection chip and a pin pad arranged on the substrate; The pin pads are exposed and distributed on two mutually perpendicular side walls of the sensor unit, and are used to connect and conduct with the circuit board; By changing the arrangement direction of the sensor unit, the positional relationship between the sensor unit and the circuit board is adjusted, so that signals in different directions can be detected by different sensor units.

2. The sensor module according to claim 1, characterized in that: The sensor unit is in a rectangular parallelepiped shape, and includes a first group of pin pads arranged on a first side wall, and a second group of pin pads arranged on a side wall adjacent to the first side wall; The detection chip is electrically connected to the first group of pin pads and the second group of pin pads.

3. The sensor module according to claim 2, characterized in that: The first group of pin pads includes a plurality of regularly distributed first pins, and the second group of pin pads includes second pins distributed corresponding to the first pins respectively; The first pin and the second pin at the corresponding position are an integrally formed structure.

4. The sensor module according to claim 3, characterized in that: The exposed parts of the first pin and the second pin at the corresponding position on the sensor unit are distributed in an L shape.

5. The sensor module according to claim 3, characterized in that: The length of the first pin or the second pin on the corresponding side wall accounts for 1 / 3 to 1 / 2 of the length of the corresponding side wall.

6. The sensor module according to claim 1, characterized in that: The detection chip includes a MEMS chip and an ASIC chip which are connected to each other; wherein, The ASIC chip is mounted on the substrate and is in electrical communication with the substrate, and the MEMS chip is mounted on the substrate or on a side of the ASIC chip away from the substrate.

7. The sensor module according to claim 1, characterized in that: A direction mark is provided on the sensor unit; The direction mark is used to indicate the installation direction of the sensor unit on the circuit board.

8. The sensor module according to claim 7, characterized in that: The direction indicator includes an arrow, an indicator mark or a color.

9. The sensor module according to claim 1, characterized in that: It also includes a microcontroller unit arranged on the circuit board; wherein, The sensor unit is connected to the micro control unit via a TDM interface, a PDM interface, an I2C interface or an SPI interface.

10. A method for assembling a sensor module, characterized in that: For assembling the sensor module according to any one of claims 1 to 9, the method comprises: According to the detection direction of the target signal of the sensor module, a sensor unit with corresponding packaging and material number is selected; According to the direction mark on the sensor unit, the pin pads of each sensor unit are welded and fixed on the circuit board; The sensor unit and the circuit board are packaged to complete the assembly of the sensor module.

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