IMKO Micromodultechnik GmbH designs and manufactures sensors and measuring instruments for the determination of volumetric and gravimetric water content. Application Portable water content measuring instruments are required in the fields of agriculture, hydrology, meteorology and soil science.
Portability allows an immediate measurement without sample conservation and preparation.
To reach the required instrument portability a 2 chip solution, the ASIC and a standard microcontroller, was necessary. The ASIC also allows a time resolution of 3 picoseconds and the integration of a PLL block, potentiometer and temperature compensation. The integration of so much functionality also created a considerable cost savings to the previous solution with reduced power consumption. BiCMOS technology was required to meet the slew rates and frequencies for the application. ECL logic was used in many blocks of the ASIC design.