In ST we are focusing on factory automation applications in general and so also on sensors specifically. For example we have specific ICs to support the IO-Link sensor communication on the sensor slave side as well as on the IO-Link master side.
To protect 3 wire proximity sensors we propose a protection device called SPT01-335 which can protect 24 V proximity sensors. It implements the reverse polarity and the overvoltage protection of the sensor power supply and also this device integrates the power switch overvoltage protection in a small QFN 3x3 mms in size.