ICM-20608-G Specifications and Applications

Motion tracking is the process of capturing the movement of objects or peoples. This technique is used in various applications such as military, medical, sports, etc… Motion tracking is also used in graphic designing and animations. For tracking motions sensors such as Gyroscope and accelerometers are highly used. It comes as a great challenge to embed these sensors in modern devices which are highly optimized in size. A multipurpose sensor can come as a solution. One of such sensors is ICM-20608-G. It has gyroscope and accelerometer and also available in a small size, making it easy to embed on various portable devices.

What is ICM-20608-G?

ICM-20608-G is motion tracking device which combines a 3-axis gyroscope and a 3-axis accelerometer. It is a high-performance,  low power consumption device. ICM-20608-G is available as a small 3×3×0.75 mm, 16-Pin LGA package. This device also contains a digital temperature sensor, programmable interrupts, and filters.

Block Diagram

The key blocks and functions of ICM-20608-G are given below-

• 3-axis MEMS gyroscope sensor along with 16-bit ADCs.
• 3-axis accelerometer sensor with 16-bit ADCs.
• I2C and SPI serial communication interfaces.
• Self-test for testing the mechanical and electrical functions of the sensors.
• Clocking.
• Sensor data registers.
• 512- bytes FIFO.
• Interrupts.
• Digital output temperature sensors.
• LDO.
• Charge pump.
• Standard power modes.

Circuit Diagram

ICM-20608-G can be easily interfaced with microcontrollers using I2C serial communication interface. To select the I2C interface CS pin should be pulled HIGH. The device also provides various libraries. By downloading the libraries one can easily use the device using commands over the I2C interface. External ceramic capacitors are used in the module at REGOUT, VDD, VDDIO.

When the gyroscope is rotated on any of its axes, the vibration caused by the Coriolis effect is picked up by the capacitor. This signal is then amplified, demodulated and filtered to generate a voltage proportional to the angular rate. ADC’s provided with the filters are used for obtaining digital values.

Pin Description

ICM-20608-G is available as a small 16- Pin LGA package. It used manufactured using CMOS -MEMS fabrication process. ICM-20608-G is usually available as modules. So, the pin description changes based on the manufacturer. But, the number of pins and their functionality are the same. Pin description of various pins of ICM-20608-G is given below-

• Pin-1, VDDIO, is the digital input/output supply voltage pin.
• Pin-2, SCL/SCLK, is the I2C serial clock (SCL) or SPI serial clock (SCLK).
• Pin-3 is used as SDA for I2C serial data and SDI for SPI serial data input.
• Pin-4 is used as AD0 for I2C slave address LSB and SDO for SPI serial data output.
• Pin-5, CS, is the chip select pin. Its value is 0 for SPI mode and 1 for I2C mode.
• Pin-6, INT, is the interrupt digital output pin.
• Pin-7, RESV, is reserved pin. This pin is not connected.
• Pin-8, FSYNC, is synchronized digital input pin. This pin should be connected to ground if not used.
• Pin-9 to Pin-12 are, RESV, reserved pins. These pins are not connected.
• Pin-13, GND, is the ground pin. This pin is connected to the ground.
• Pin-14, REGOUT, is the regulator filter capacitor connection pin.
• Pin-15, RESV, is the reserved pin.
• Pin-16, VDD, is the power supply pin.

Specifications of ICM-20608-G

Some of the specifications of ICM-20608-G are as follows-

• ICM-20608-G contains 3-axis Gyroscope and 3-axis accelerometer.
• The gyroscope present on this module has a user-programmable full-scale range of ±250, ±500, ±1000 and ±2000°/sec.
• The gyroscope is also provided with a 16-bit ADCs.
• The accelerometer present on the device has a user-programmable full-scale range of ±2g, ±4g, ±8g, and ±16g.
• The accelerometer is also provided with 16- bit ADCs.
• ICM-20608-G has user-programmable interrupts.
• This device also has on-chip programmable filters.
• Minimal cross-axis sensitivity between accelerometer and gyroscope axis, to reduce interference.
•  The gyroscope has a factory calibrated sensitivity scale-factor.
• ICM-20608-G has both I2C and SPI serial interfaces.
• To lower the traffic on the serial bus interface, this device also contains 512 bytes of FIFO.
• This device can communicate with all the registers present on the device, either by using I2C at 400kHz or using SPI  at 8Mhz.
• This device is available as a small but high-performance LGA package.
• Besides gyroscope and accelerometer, ICM-20608-G also has a digital temperature sensor.
• 10,000g shock tolerance of the device provides high robustness.
• This device as two separate supply voltages VDD and VDDIO.
• Operating range of VDD is from 1.71v to 3.45v.
• The operating range of VDDIO is also from 1.71 V to 3.45V.
• When gyroscope and accelerometer both are used for an application, current of 3mA is required.
• When only the gyroscope is used, 2.6 mA of current is required.
• Specified temperature range of this device is from -40°C to 85°C.
• Storage temperature range of this device is from -40°C to 125°C.

Applications of ICM-20608-G

Some of the applications are given below-

• As ICM-20608-G comes in a small package, it is used in portable devices.
• This device is used in handsets and portable gaming equipment.
• Drones and toy planes also use this device.
• This device is also used in mobile phones and tablets.
• 3D remote control for DTVs and in 3D mice.
• ICM-20608-G can be found in wearable devices used for health, fitness, and sports.
• This device is also used in robotics.
• In VR and AR devices ICM-20608-G is used.
• Due to its less power consumption, ICM-20608-G is highly used in battery-powered devices.
• In applications where protection against sudden drop is required, ICM-20608-G is very useful.
• In navigation systems, this device is applied for accurate measurements.

Alternative IC of ICM-20608-G

ICM-20608-G is a 6-axis motion tracking device launched by InvenSense. Some of the IC that are available in the market and can be used as an alternative for ICM-20608-G are ADXL335, MPU6050, MMA7341.

The 6-axis integration of this device enables the manufacturers to eliminate time-consuming complex processes such as selection, qualification, and system-level integration of discrete devices during manufacturing. This module can be easily interfaced with Arduino, making it highly preferable by students for designing projects.ICM-20608-G gives accurate measurements providing high end-user experience. Further electrical characteristics and interrupt timing diagrams can be found in the ICM-20608-G datasheet. Which serial interface have you used for your application?