I recently came across this funky looking thing. Left behind by a dishwasher repairman, it’s a pressure sensor from a dishwasher made by Marquardt, a German manufacturer of sensors, switches, pumps, lights, and various other components for industrial and automotive applications.
I bought this smoke and carbon monoxide detector several years ago, and it’s been doing its job just fine ever since: mostly being silent, screaming when I burn my toast, and beeping every two years or so when its batteries run out. Recently however it began beeping for no reason, and I couldn’t get it to stop other than by removing the batteries. So I bought a new one and decided to tear down the old one.
The LIS3DH is an accelerometer, designed and manufactured by STMicroelectronics. Like most accelerometers today it is a MEMS device (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), which means the sensing function is made from silicon and integrated into an IC process. Special etching techniques are used to create tiny moving parts that can bend in certain directions, along with sensors that can detect that movement.
MEMS accelerometers are used in many electronic devices: your phone that detects whether you’re holding it horizontally or vertically, your games console that can sense which way you’re moving the controller, or your car that can detect the speed and direction in which you’ve just crashed so it can properly deploy the airbag.
The LIS3DH is housed in a little LGA package that measures just 3 x 3 mm2. Oddly there’s no ST logo or marking on the package. The “ON5nn” production code could actually trick you into thinking this is an ONSemi part.
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