Driver drowsiness and fatigue significantly affect vehicle safety and are major contributors to road accidents. To address these risks, many top automotive manufacturers are increasingly incorporating Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) and Occupant Monitoring Systems (OMS), shown in Figure 1. DMS is designed to track the driver's physical and attentional state to help prevent unsafe driving, while OMS observes the presence and status of passengers for enhanced safety and comfort.

Lumissil Microsystems introduces the IS32LT3182, an LED driver and capacitive touch-key controller with LIN 2.2A compliant communications. The device integrates both the LIN protocol controller and physical layer transceiver. The built-in LED driver has an adjustable current limit up to 150mA with 0.4mA resolution. For added utility, the IS32LT3182 also features two onboard capacitive touch sensors. The IS32LT3182 targets automotive applications. It is AEC-Q100 certified, and temperature tested from -40C to +125C.

LED lighting and LCD backlights should appear flicker-free in order to provide a pleasing look for both human observers and video cameras. When LEDs look stripy on phone cameras or "flutter" to the eye, it's usually because the LED controller is using a slow PWM clock. Traditionally, achieving very fine brightness control or high color accuracy with 16-bit PWM requires running a slow PWM clock which increases the risk of visible flicker to the eye and rollingshutter banding on video. This newsletter introduces PWM dithering technology which keeps LED brightness and color smooth and pushes the low-frequency 'blinking' PWM into the multi-kHz range where both people and cameras see steady light.