Pressure sensor

Abstract

A pressure sensor is provided which is tolerant to noise such as electromagnetic waves, is configured so as to be capable of easily selecting a system environment in which a sensor signal, commonly used for various kinds of systems, can be freely read in at timing as required by a system, and is able to realize reduction in size and cost suitable for automotive use. An element portion for detecting pressure and a circuit portion having a signal processing function are integrally accommodated in the same package. An interface section 24 optimized to interface with external wiring, an A/D conversion section 25 for digitally encoding an analog processed detection signal of the sensor, and a digital processing section 26 for converting the digitized signal into a desired serial signal are added to the circuit portion 2. The entire circuit portion is constituted by at most two ICs alone, and a selection can be made between two output forms including an analog processed detection signal and a digital processed detection signal.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.