AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

Temperature and Humidity sensor

•Full calibration
•Digital output, I 2 C interface
•Excellent long-term stability
•SMD package suitable for reflow soldering
•Quick response and strong anti-jamming capability

AHT20, as a new generation of temperature and As a result, the performance of the new generation
humidity sensors, has established a new standard of temperature and humidity sensors has greatly
in size and intelligence. It is embedded in a double improved or even exceeded that of the previous ones
row flat no-lead package suitable for reflow with more stability in harsh environments.
soldering, with a bottom of 3 x 3 mm and a height Each sensor is calibrated and tested, with product
of 1.0 mm. The sensor outputs calibrated digital batch number printed on the surface of the product.
signals in standard I 2 C format.AHT20 is equipped Due to the improvement and miniaturization of the
with a newly designed ASIC chip, an improved sensor, its cost-effective ratio is higher, and
MEMS semiconductor capacitive humidity sensing finally all equipment will benefit from the cutting-
element and a standard on-chip temperature edge energy-saving operation mode.
sensing element.

3.0 1.1
2.0 0.7

0.8
0.4
1.0

3.0 ASAIR®
0.55
AHT20
0.4
XXXXXX
Buttom view Top view Top view Buttom view
2.8±0.03mm

1.0

Front view Front view

Figure 1: AHT20 Sensor Package Diagram (Unit: mm Tolerance: ±0.1 mm)

1.1 1/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

△RH(%R H ) △T℃
±10
Typical Value
±8 ±2.0
Max Value Max Value

±6 ±1.5

±4 ±1.0

±2
±0.5
±0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 ±0.0
-40 -20 0 20 40 60 80

1.1 2/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

The power consumption given in Table 1 is related to

temperature and supply voltage VDD. Estimated power
consumption, see Figures 6 and 7. Note that the curves
in Figures 6 and 7 are typical natural characteristics
and may have deviations.

1.1 3/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

Due to the low SMD mounting, it is recommended to use

9

2.1 Welding Specification no-cleaning type 3 solders tin and to purify it with
The I/O pads of SMD are made of copper pin frame nitrogen during reflux.
planar substrates, which are exposed to the outside
TP tP
for mechanical and electrical connections. When
used, I / O pads and bare pads need to be welded on
TL tL
PCB. In order to prevent oxidation and optimize
welding, the welding joints at the bottom of the T S (max)

Temperature
sensor are plated with Ni/Au.On PCB, the length
7

of I/O contact surface should be 0.2 mm longer than

that of the I/O package pad of AHT 20. The inner part
should match the shape of the I/O package pad. The
Critical zone
ratio of pin width to SMD package pad width is1:1. Preheating zone Time
See figure 8.
For screen and solder layer design, it is suggested
to use copper foil definition solder (SMD) with the
solder layer opening larger than the metal solder
AHT 20 can be welded through standard reflow furnace.
plate.
The sensor fully meets the IPC/JEDEC J-STD-020D
For SMD pads, if the gap between the copper welding standard. The contact time should be less than
foil pad and the soldering layer is 60m-75m, 30 seconds at the highest 260℃ (see Fig. 9) and the
the opening size of the soldering layer shall be ultimate welding temperature that the sensor can
greater than the size of the soldering plate withstand is 260℃，so it is recommended to use low
(120 m-150 m). temperature 180℃ when reflow soldering.
The circular part of the sealing pad shall match
the corresponding circular solder layer opening Note: After reflow welding, the sensor should be
stored in the environment of > 75% RH for at least
to ensure that there is enough solder layer area 12 hours to ensure the re-hydration of the polymer.
(especially at the corner) to prevent solder from Otherwise, it will cause sensor reading drift. The
joining. sensor can also be placed in a natural environment
Each pad shall have its own soldering layer (> 40% RH) for more than five days to re-hydrate.
opening, forming a soldering layer network Hydration time can be reduced by using low
temperature reflow welding (e.g.180℃).
around the adjacent pads.
2.0 Don't wash the circuit boards is allowed after
welding. Therefore, it is suggested that customers
use "wash-free" solder paste. If the sensor is
applied to corrosive gases, condensate water may
be produced (e.g. in high humidity environment),
0.5 both pin pads and PCB need to be sealed
1.0 (e.g. using conformal coating) to avoid poor contact
or short circuit.

2.2 Storage conditions and instructions

Top view
0.8
The humidity sensitivity level (MSL) is 1, according
to IPC/JEDEC J-STD-020 standard. Therefore, it is
recommended to use it within one year after delivery.
For solder printing, laser cutting stainless steel mesh
with electronic polishing trapezoidal wall is Humidity sensor is not an ordinary electronic
recommended, with recommended thickness of component, and it needs careful protection, which
0. 125 mm. The steel mesh size of the pad should be users must pay attention to. Long-term exposure
0.1 mm longer than PCB pad and placed 0.1 mm away to high concentration of chemical vapor will cause
from the packaging center. Steel mesh with bare pads the sensor reading to drift.
must cover 70% - 90% of the pad area - that is, the
central position of the heat dissipation area reaches
1. 4 mm x 2. 3 mm.

1.1 4/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

Therefore, it is recommended that the sensor be

stored in the original package including sealed ESD 2.5 Product application scenario design
bag, and meet the following conditions: temperature In product design, the sensor has following
range 10~50℃（0~85℃ in a limited time), humidity characteristics:
20~60% RH(no ESD packaged sensor). For sensors 1) Sensor is in full contact with the outside air
that they be stored in antistatic bags made of metal
PET/AL/CPE. Housing
During production and transportation, sensors should PCB
avoid exposure to high concentration of chemical Figure 10: Suitable windows on the enclosure provide good
access to environmental measurements and allow for greater
solvents and prolonged exposure. Avoid exposure to air exchange.
volatile glue, adhesive tape, stickers or volatile
2) The sensor is completely isolated from the
packaging materials, such as foamed foil, foam
air nside the housing
material, etc. The production area should be well Housing
ventilated.
PCB
Figure 12: The sensor is isolated from the air inside the housing,
2.3 Recovery processing which minimizes the impact of the air inside the housing on the
sensor.
As mentioned above, if the sensor is exposed to 3) Small measurement dead zone around the sensor
extreme working conditions or chemical vapor, the
reading will drift. It can be restored to the calibration Housing
state by processing as follows. Drying: Keep for 10
PCB
hours at 80~85℃ with the humidity of more than 75% Figure 13: Small measurement dead zone helps the sensor to
RH. quickly and comprehensively detect environmental changes.
Rehydration: Keep for 12 hours at 20~30℃ with the
10

humidity of more than 75% RH.

10 4) The sensor is isolated from the heat

2.4 Temperature influence

The relative humidity of gases depends largely on
temperature. Therefore, when measuring humidity, all Figure 14: The sensor is isolated from the internal heat source to
minimize the effect of internal heat on sensor.
sensors measuring the same humidity should work at
the same temperature as possible. When testing, it is
necessary to ensure that the same temperature, and 5) The sensor power supply can be controlled
then compare the humidity readings. In order to improve the stability of the system, the following two
solutions for controlling power supply are provided:
If the sensor and the heating-prone electronic
components are placed on the same printing circuit
board, measures should be taken to minimize the
effect of heat transfer as far as possible in the design
of the circuit.
For example, to maintain good ventilation of the shell,
the copper coating of AHT20 and other parts of the Figure 15-1 Typical application circuit ①, the pull-up voltage and
printed circuit board should be as smallest as VDD of SCL and SDA are powered by the MCU.
possible, or leave a gap between them. (See Fig. 10) Note: 1. The host MCU supplies AHT20 with a voltage range of 2.0
~ 5.5V.
2. When the AHT20 is just powered on, the MCU gives priority
to the VDD power supply, which can be set after 5ms SCL and SDA
are high.

Moreover, when the measurement frequency is too

high, the temperature of the sensor itself will rise,
which will affect the measurement accuracy. In order
to make its temperature rise below 0.1 , the
activation time of AHT20 should not exceed 10% of Figure 15-2 Typical application circuit ②, AHT20 operation is
controlled by whether GND is grounded.
the measurement time - it is recommended to
measure data every 2 seconds. Note: The user can indirectly control the GND and ground by
controlling the switch module composed of transistors, so that the
AHT20 is powered off.

1.1 5/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

2.6 Material used for sealing and encapsulation 3.2 Serial clock SCL

Many materials absorb moisture and act as buffer, which SCL is used to synchronize the communication
will increase response time and hysteresis. Therefore, the between microprocessor and AHT20. Because the
material around the sensor should be carefully seleaed. interface contains complete static logic, there is no
Recommended materials are: Metal materials, LCP, POM minimum SCL frequency.
(Delrin). PTFE (Teflon), PE, PEEK, PP, PB, PPS, PSU,
PVDF, and PVF. Material for sealing and bonding
(conservative recommendation): It is recommended to use 3.3 Serial data SDA
method of flling epoxy resin or silicone resin for packaging
electronic components. Gases released from these SDA pins are used for data input and output of sensors.
materials may also contaminate AHT20 (see 2.2). When sending commands to sensors, SDA is valid at
Therefore. the sensor should be finally assembled and the rising edge of serial clock (SCL), and SDA must
placed in a well-ventilated place, or dried for 24 hours in remain stable when SCL is high level.After the
an environment of > 50℃, in order to release the descending edge of SCL, the SDA value can be
contaminated gas before packaging. changed. To ensure communication safety, the effective
time of SDA should be extended to TSU and THO
respectively before SCL rising edge and after SCL
2.7 Wiring rules and signal integrity falling edge-refer to Fig 17. When the data is read from
the sensor, SDA is valid (TV) after the SCL decreases
If the SCL and SDA signal lines are parallel and very and maintains the descent edge of the next SCL.
close to each other, it may cause signal crosstalk and
communication failure. The solution is to place VDD
and / or GND between the two signal lines, separate
the signal lines, and use shielded cables. In addition,
reducing the SCL frequency may also improve the
integrity of signal transmission. A 100nF decoupling
capacitor must be added between the power supply
pins (VDD, GND) for filtering. This capacitor should be Figure 16 Typical application circuit
as close as possible to the sensor. See the next chapter.
Note: 1. The pull-up voltage of SCL and SDA must be powered by VDD,
and the power supply voltage range is 2.0 ~ 5.5V;
2. Add 100nF decoupling capacitor between VDD and GND;
3. AHT20 can share I2C bus with other I2C devices.

To avoid signal collision, MCU must only drive SDA and

SCL at low levels. An external pull-up resistor(e.g.10kΩ)
is needed to lift the signal to a high level. The pull-up
resistance may have been included in the MCU's I/O
circuit. Detailed information about sensor input/output
NC 1 6 NC characteristics can be obtained by referring to tables 7
and 8.
VDD 2 5 GN D

SCL 3 4 SD A

Top view 4.1 Absolute Maximum Rating

The electric specifcations of AHT20 are defned in
Table 2. The absolute maximum ratings given in Table 6
are only stress ratings and to provide more information.
3.1 Power Pins (VDD,GND) Under such conditions, it is not advisable for the device
to perform functional operation. Exposure to absolute
maximum rating or a long time may affect the reliability
The power supply range of AHT20 is 2.0-5.5V, and the of the sensor.
recommended voltage is 3.3V. A decoupling capacitor
of 100nF must be added between VDD and GND to play
a filtering role. VDD is powered on preferentially or
synchronously than SDA and SCL to avoid the leakage
current from the signal line (SCL / SDA) sinking in,
causing the chip to be in a non-working state after
power-on.

1.1 6/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

ESD electrostatic discharge conforms to JEDEC

JESD22-A114 standard (human body mode ±4kV) and
JEDEC JESD22-A115 (machine mode±200V) If the test
condition exceeds the nominal limit, the sensor needs
additional protection circuit.

4.2 Input/output characteristics

Electric specifcations include power consumption, high

and low voltage of input and output, voltage of power
supply. In order to make the sensor communication
smooth, it is important to ensure that the signal design
is strictly limited to the range given in tables 7, 8 and 17.

AHT20 adopts standard I²C protocol to communicate.

For information on the I²C protocol except the
following chapters, please refer to the following
website: www.aosong.com for sample reference.

5.1 Start Sensor

Step 1: Make the sensor power on with selected voltage

of VDD power supply voltage (ranging from 2.0V to 5.5V).
When the sensor is powered on, it takes 20 milliseconds
at most (the SCL is high level) to enter idle state, thatis, to
be ready to receive commands sent by MCU.
t

5.2 Timing sequence of start/stop

Each transport sequence starts with the Start state

and ends with the Stop state, as shown in Figures
18 and 19.

Figure 17 70%
SCL 30%

70%
SDA 30%

18

1.1 7/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR®

70%
5.4 Sensor reading process
SCL 30%
1. Wait 40ms after power-on. Before reading the temperature
and humidity values, first check whether the calibration
70% enable bit Bit [3] of the status word is 1 (you can get a byte of
SDA 30% status word by sending 0x71). If not 1, need to send 0xbe
command (for initialization), this command parameter has
two bytes, the first byte is 0x08, the second byte is 0x00,
19 and then wait for 10ms.

2. Send the 0xAC command directly (trigger measurement).

The parameter of this command has two bytes, the first byte
is 0x33 and the second byte is 0x00.
5.3 Send Command
3. Wait for 80ms to wait for the measurement to be completed.
After the transmission is initiated, the first byte of the If the read status word Bit [7] is 0, it indicates that the
subsequent I2C transmission includes the 7-bit I2C measurement is completed, and then six bytes can be read
device address 0x38 and a SDA direction bit x (read R: in a row; otherwise, continue to wait.
‘1’, write W: ‘0’). After the falling edge of the 8th SCL
clock, the SDA pin (ACK) is pulled low to indicate that 4. After receiving six bytes, the next byte is the CRC check
the sensor data reception is normal. After issuing the data, the user can read it as needed, if the receiving end
initialization command 0xBE and the measurement needs CRC check, then send it after receiving the sixth byte
command 0xAC, the MCU must wait until the ACK response, otherwise NACK is sent out, CRC initial value
measurement is completed. The basic commands are is 0XFF, CRC8 check polynomial is:
summarized in Table 9. Table 10 shows the status bits
returned from the slave. CRC[7:0]=1+x4 + x5 + x 8

5. Calculate the temperature and humidity values.

Note: The calibration status check in the first step
only needs to be checked at power-on. No operation
is required during the normal acquisition process.

Trigger measurement data

I²C address + write Trigger measurement 0xAC

DATA0 DATA0

Read temperature and humidity data

I²C address + read State

Humidity data Humidity data

Humidity temperature Temperature data

[2:0]

Temperature data CRC data

NACK

NACK

1.1 8/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR®

AHT20 provides SMD packaging (similar to QFN),

which represents a bilateral flat and pin-free package.
The sensor chip is made of a copper lead frame coated
with Ni/Au. The weight of the sensor is about 19 mg.
5.5 Soft Reset

This command (see Table 11) is used to restart the sensor

system without turning the power off and on again. After All AHT20 sensors have laser labels on their surfaces.
receiving this command, the sensor system begins to See Figure 20.
re-initialize and restore the default setting state, and the
time required for soft reset does not exceed 20 ms.

ASAIR®
Table 11 Soft Reset– The grey part is controlled by AHT20.
AHT20
XXXXXX
Figure 20: Sensor laser label

A label is also attached to the tape, as shown in Figure 21,

6.1 Relative humidity transformation and other trace information is provided.

®
Relative humidity RH can be calculated according to
the relative humidity signal SRH output from SDA by
ASAIR
the following equation. 名称:
Name
温湿度传感器
(The result is expressed in% RH) 型号: AHT20
Model
数量: 5000PCS
Quantity
日期: YYYY-MM-DD
Date
批号: XXXXXX
Batch number
6.2 Temperature transformation
Temperature T can be calculated by substituting the
temperature output signal ST into the following formula. 2 0 1 9 1 2 1 0

(The results are expressed as temperature ℃ T)

Figure 21: Label on the tape

If the sensor is used in equipment or machinery，please

make sure that it is the same temperature and humidity
that the sensor used for measurement and the sensor
used for reference that have sensed. If the sensor is
placed in the equipment, the reaction time will be
prolonged, so it is necessary to ensure that suffcient
measurement time is reserved in the programming.
The AHT20 sensor is tested according to the enterprise
standard of Aosong temperature and humidity sensor.
The performance of sensors under other test conditions
is not guaranteed and cannot be regarded as a part of
sensor performance. Especially for the specific
occasions required by users, we do not make any
commitments.

1.1 9/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

13.5±0.5mm
93.0±1mm W1
A1±1mm W2

I A φR1
φR3
B W
F
K E
P1 D P2 φR2

Model A1 E W1 W2 N
AHT20 233/330 2 12 16 100
Model Unit Tolerance Quantity Weight
AHT20 mm ±0.5 5000(AMX) 500/g

Model A/B K W φR2/φR3 φR1

+0.1 +0.1 +0.1 +0.1
AHT20 3.25 -0.0 1.25 -0.0 12.0±0.3 1.50 -0.0 0.50 -0.0

Model P1 P2 I F E D
AHT20 8.0±0.1 4.0±0.1 0.3±0.05 5.5±0.1 1.75±0.1 2.0±0.1
Figure 22: Package tape and sensor location diagram

Version information

Date Version Page Change

2019/12 V1.0 1-10 Initial version

2020/04 V1.1 Add CRC check description, modify application scenario

1-11
design and read process description
This manual is subject to change without notice.

1.1 10/11
AHT20 Product manuals ASAIR ®

Attention

1.1 11/11