Si-Ware's NeoSpectra is the first spectrometer built into beauty product

LAS VEGAS, NV, Consumer Electronics Show  — Si-Ware Systems, an independent fabless semiconductor company fostering silicon innovation, announced that its award winning NeoSpectra-Micro spectral sensor has been customized into Henkel Beauty Care’s Schwarzkopf Professional SalonLab Smart Analyzer. SalonLab is a transformative digital care consultation approach for salon professionals that provides a precision, data-driven, highly personalized care service and product recommendation based on analysis of inner hair condition parameters.

The NeoSpectra-Micro is customized for the SalonLab Smart Analyzer, a handheld component of the system that resembles a small hair iron, which is used to scan the inner hair condition parameters. The resulting data is then transmitted to a computer tablet application and translated into a service and product recommendation for Schwarzkopf Professional care products.

The full SalonLab ecosystem was introduced in January 2018 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and is now in pilot deployments at key sites. SalonLab won two 2018 CES innovation awards in the health and beauty category.

“Spectroscopy offers salon professionals the ability to provide data-driven insight into the inner hair condition of their clients’ hair,” said Isabell Dietz, Corporate Director Innovation, Henkel Beauty Care. “We chose to customize the NeoSpectra sensor into our device to achieve the needed accuracy, flexibility and small size.”

“The accuracy and versatility of NeoSpectra sensors is a major game changer for the consumer industry,” said Scott Smyser, executive vice president of Si-Ware Systems. “Besides the obvious additional health and beauty applications such as analysis of skin and nails, there is significant potential in other consumer markets such as home air quality, home food safety, and home health.”

The NeoSpectra-Micro is a small, chip-scale, near infra-red (NIR) spectral sensor that quickly analyzes materials onsite without the need to send samples to a lab, enabling dramatic time savings and accurate, actionable data in the field or on the plant floor.

The device is small enough and thin enough to be designed into new or existing handheld products. Delivering the same functionality as conventional “bench-top” spectrometers in labs, the integrated NeoSpectra-Micro brings to end-users the ability to immediately quantify composition, detect impurities and ascertain quality, speeding analysis of samples from days to minutes.

“The technology is a natural fit for consumer applications such as Henkel’s,” said Bassam Saadany, optical MEMS business unit manager and founder, Si-Ware Systems. “The miniaturization and wafer-scale manufacturing can allow developers to build this right into small mobile devices, while the near infra-red spectrum enables novel applications for analyzing materials in almost any market sector.”

NeoSpectra-Micro builds on the success of the popular and cost-effective NeoSpectra-Module used by system integrators for development of industry-specific in-field and in-line spectrometer applications. The module is currently in use in agriculture, petrochemical, and healthcare industries.

Si-Ware Systems is showing the NeoSpectra-Micro, which is in volume production, at CES in Las Vegas at booth #40731, the SEMI Pavilion (Smart Homes area), at the Sands Expo.

Si-Ware Systems (SWS) is an independent fabless semiconductor company that is fostering silicon innovation. SWS has two main businesses – ASIC Solutions and Optical MEMS Technology. ASIC Solutions provides custom ASIC development and supply, specializing in analog/mixed-signal and RF design. Focus areas of expertise for ASICs include sensor interfaces and MEMS, wireless, timing, and power management. Optical MEMS Technology has developed the worlds’ first single-chip FT-IR spectrometer under the brand name NeoSpectra™ (www.neospectra.com), using its unique platform – Silicon integrated Micro Optical Systems Technology (SiMOST™), that allows the creation of multiple optical components on silicon. SWS also incubates new and innovative semiconductor technology to bring to market, such an all-silicon Self Compensating Oscillator (SCO™). For more information, please visit www.si-ware.com.

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