At 11:00 am on September 11, 2019, Beijing time (10:00 am on September 10, California time), the iPhone's annual autumn new product launch will come. Apple's new product launch conference has always been highly anticipated. The release of the new generation of mobile phone iPhone 11 has emerged. The most popular and hot topic is the design of its camera, and Xiao Bian believes that the thinking of the new generation of iPhone is definitely not just In appearance, Xiao Bian is more concerned about the experience of new products. As a small fruit powder has been attracted by the design and details of the iPhone, what breakthroughs and surprises will this new generation of new products have in terms of experience?

The application of the sensor plays a decisive role in the smoothness of the product experience. Apple's leading position in the electronic equipment industry has made its internal use technology an industrial wind vane. So Xiaobian collected the sensors used in iPhone products in recent years to summarize and look forward to a whole development and future trends from the sensor industry.

First, iPhone 4/4s

Let's start with iPhone4. Why is it iPhone4? The first reason is that Xiaobian's memory for Apple originated from iPhone4, but the more important reason is that Phone4 is the first smart touch-screen mobile phone. At that time, it led the trend of the whole mobile phone market and opened a new door for the era of electronic products. So what are the sensors that are worth discussing in the iPhone 4?

Capacitive touch sensor

Using the current sensing work of the human body, the inner surface and the interlayer of a four-layer composite glass screen are each coated with a conductive layer, and the outermost layer is a layer of bauxite glass protective layer. When our finger touches the sensor screen, the electric field of the human body forms a coupling capacitor between the finger and the touch screen, and the capacitance is a direct conductor for high-frequency current. The finger then draws a small current from the contact point, which flows out of the electrodes on the four feet of the touch screen, and the current flowing through the four electrodes is proportional to the distance from the finger to the four electrodes. The controller calculates the distance of the touch points by making an accurate calculation of the ratio of the four currents.

Three-axis gyroscope

The gyroscope in the iPhone 4 is not a rotating wheel-type mechanical gyro but a micro-structured micro-mechanical gyroscope, also known as a MEMS gyroscope, that senses three dimensional changes in direction. The ability of the mobile phone to sense motion will be greatly enhanced. For games that use gravity sensing, the user experience will have a very large impact, and the operational feeling will be closer to the real feeling. For example, if the iPhone senses a physical flip and the corresponding screen flips, it depends on this sensor.

distance sensor

A sensor that uses the principle of "flying time" to detect the distance of an object. The principle of operation is to emit a particularly short time and measure the time from the emission of the light pulse to the reflection of the object, by measuring the time interval. Calculate the distance from the object. Its function is to be close to the skin during the call to perform the screen operation to prevent misoperation and save the power of the mobile phone.

Ambient light sensor

It is a combination of a photoresistor and a photodiode. It automatically adjusts the brightness of the handheld device based on the brightness of the handheld device, giving the user the best visual effect.

Magnetic sensor

The magnetic sensor has solved the problem of inaccurate GPS positioning and inability to distinguish the direction. With the magnetic sensor, the phone can accurately locate and identify the direction. Location sharing in social software, step counting in the step counter software, etc. benefit from this.

Temperature Sensor

When the iPhone detects that the ambient temperature changes are relatively large beyond the normal range. The iPhone will automatically shut down.

Second, iPhone 5/5C/5S

Before the iPhone5s was released, the slogan was ¡°advanced, unprecedented¡±, and its new features were many. These functions were also implemented by various sensors, so when you saw this ¡°s¡±, you thought of sensors.

Fingerprint sensor

Introduced biometric security technology, giving up the cumbersome cryptography technology, Touch ID sensor encapsulates 500 pixels per inch sensor, can scan the skin dermis 360¡ã, so as to collect and identify fingerprints.

M7 motion coprocessor

The M7 processor is not a sensor in the traditional sense. As the number of sensors is becoming more and more intelligent, the number of generated sensors is increasing, and the generated data is also increasing. In order to reduce the burden on the CPU to process data, the M7 is used as the iPhone 5s product line. The new chip processor is designed to measure motion data from accelerometers, gyroscopes and compasses. With the M7 processor responsible for this data, the iPhone 5s will last longer.

It is listed mainly to emphasize Apple's thoughts around the sensor, and to understand the importance of the sensor and the effort to make the sensor application sustainable.

How to look at the development of the sensor industry from the development of mobile phones

CMOS image sensor

The pixels of the rear camera are also from 500 pixels of iPhone4 to 800 pixels of iPhone5s. Although the iPhone5s front camera pixel is not improved compared with the iPhone4s, the 5s uses a larger area of CMOS image sensor, which greatly improves the quality of the camera. .

MEMS microphone

Three microphones are used on the back for noise reduction after high-definition video recording, which improves the reduction of recording.

Third, iPhone 6/iPhone 6 Plus

There is no revolutionary breakthrough in sensor types, basically accelerometers, gyroscopes, electronic compasses, fingerprint sensors, distance and ambient light sensors, MEMS microphones, image sensors, etc. Only the air pressure sensor is used on mobile phones for the first time.

Near Field Communication Payment Function (NFC)

Fingerprint recognition has been made on the iPhone 5s, and the iPhone Pay function has been integrated on the iPhone 6 with fingerprint recognition and near-field communication. From then on, you don't need to swipe your card to travel with your mobile phone, which greatly facilitates people's lives and travel.

Barometer

This is the first time that Apple has used a barometric pressure sensor on a mobile phone. The barometer is used to measure the atmospheric pressure. The altitude can also be known by the change in barometric pressure. This can be used in conjunction with the built-in APP ¡°healthy¡±. With this sensor, you can climb up to the floor and climb up to get accurate data.

Fourth, iPhone 6S/6splus

In addition to the 3D Touch, the iPhone6s Plus does not add new sensor types compared to the iPhone6 Plus. It still includes accelerometers, gyroscopes, electronic compasses, barometers, fingerprint sensors, proximity and ambient light sensors, MEMS microphones and CMOS image sensors. Kind of sensor.

Pressure sensor (3D Touch)

3D Touch adds a capacitive pressure sensor and TapTIc Engine to the screen of the iPhone 6s/iPhone 6s Plus, allowing the system to recognize different presses of the user's fingers to make different operations and functions.

Five, iPhone7/7plus

Non-mechanical pressing Home key

The iPhone changed the Home button to a non-mechanical press. If you don't feel it, is it very uncomfortable? So Apple has increased the TAPTIC Engine vibrator used in implementing 3D Touch, and vibrates when pressed, giving you an illusion that the button is pressed down.

With this method, one is not easy to damage (some people worry that the button will not be broken, is the vibrator more likely to be broken?), the second is better waterproof, and the third is to use vibration when playing games. Feedback, imagine the vibrating handle.

7 megapixel front camera

The front camera has been upgraded to 7 megapixels, and with a faster image sensor, the camera is faster. And on the iPhone 7, it also adds optical image stabilization that is only available in the Plus series.

Scintillation sensor

The electric lights and the like that we usually use are all AC artificial light. When the light is very stable, it is actually flashing. In this way, when the image sensor is an image acquired in a row, the effect of the artificial light collected in different lines may be different, which may result in uneven color of the photograph taken.

So Apple added a flicker sensor to continuously collect the light, so that it can be corrected during image processing. The scintillation sensor should be a chip placed with the image sensor, and the light should be passed through the lens, which remains to be confirmed.

Dual cameras

The biggest highlight on the iPhone 7 Plus is the dual camera, a wide-angle, one telephoto, which can take care of both needs and take macro shots.

Six, iPhone8/8 puls

Compared with the previous products, the iPhone 8 series has no eye-catching breakthroughs, but only optimizes and upgrades the original ones.

Camera sensor

Both use Sony's rear-mounted lighting chip, which is 32.8 square millimeters. However, the preset wide-angle camera sensor has a pixel pitch of 1.22 microns and a zoom pitch of less than 1 micron. The greater the spacing, the better the light will be. More than a quarter of a micron can produce very different effects. The wide-angle camera has low sensitivity requirements and shorter exposure times, and performs better in low-light environments.

Seven, iPhoneX

The appearance of the iPhone x has changed a lot. The front side looks like an almost full screen, canceling the bottom home button that Apple has used for 10 years. The obvious change in the back is that the rear double shot is changed to the vertical arrangement.

3D recognition sensor

The biggest feature on the iPhone x is the face id. What makes people most talk about is the "Liu Haiping" design on the front of the iPhone x, but the official name of Apple is "the original deep camera system". The original deep camera system has several modules, from left to right respectively. Lens, flood sensor, distance sensor, ambient light sensor, speaker, microphone, 7 megapixel camera, dot matrix projector

Eight, iPhone 11/11 pro/11 pro max

Three cameras

At the press conference, the biggest explanation was the new camera system. The new wide-angle camera has 100% focus pixels, and its autofocus speed is three times faster in low light environments. And a new super wide-angle camera

New sensor coprocessor: R1

The R1 integrates more sensors than the motion coprocessor to better position the device. The motion coprocessor currently integrates data from compasses, gyroscopes, accelerometers, barometers and microphones. The R1 (Rose) coprocessor supports IMU, Bluetooth 5.1, Ultra Wide Band (UWB) and camera (including motion capture and optical tracking) sensor data. This means that the R1 processor may replace the M-series motion coprocessor.

Nine, the summary

A brief review of the replacement of Apple in the past 9 years and the representative sensors used in each new product. From the whole development process, it can be seen that the sensors used by each new Apple are not only continuing in the previous generation. Based on the sensor, the above-mentioned technical update and upgrade are also becoming more and more widely used in the types of sensors. But in general, the technical development of sensors is in a slow process, the speed of research and development of new sensors is insufficient, and breakthroughs in new technologies are not enough.

The implementation of the update function of the product generation must be inseparable from the assistance of the sensor. The demand for sensors is not only in the field of Apple or electronics, but also in other companies or other fields. The greater the demand, the greater the competition, and the demand for sensors will be higher and higher. The development trend of sensors will become more and more precise, precise, multi-functional, intelligent, wear-resistant and integrated. Therefore, the development of sensor companies should focus on the development of new technologies and new products. Have the strength to seize the opportunity and occupy the high places of the industry.