fee-powerful manufacturing of magnetic sensors

in which did you need to cross? flip right right here -- or become it the subsequent turn? a glance at the clever-cellphone helps: diverse apps offer maps and flip them within the right direction, adjusting them to north. Navigation devices are equally "smart": They too display the right route even earlier than the car units off. that is made feasible through a magnetic sensor. It establishes how the device is being held on the subject of Earth's magnetic discipline. The market is fairly competitive: each cent counts inside the charge of the sensors. till now, producers have trusted numerous cheap one-dimensional sensors. The downside: they're less touchy and do now not paintings as accurately as -dimensional models.

In destiny but, compact -dimensional sensors could locate their way into clever-telephones. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for electronic Nano structures ENAS, in Chemnitz have optimized the corresponding manufacturing method. "The charges and production time for two-dimensional magnetic discipline sensors drop through half of," says Dr. Olaf Ueberschär, institution supervisor at the ENAS.

Sensors "from one piece"

The cause for this drop in expenses lies in the method of manufacturing: The scientists produce the sensors from one piece of cloth -- as a result in a totally exclusive manner than ever earlier than. because even a one-dimensional sensor wishes  microelectronic 1/2-bridges, whose implemented magnetic fields point in opposite guidelines. as the simple substances specify a magnetization direction, meaning that the magnetic discipline within them is already aligned,  one of a kind portions of material used to must be joined -- an tricky and also steeply-priced procedure. two half of-bridge sensors or 4 pieces of cloth have been required for two-dimensional sensors.

"For the first time we're able to produce no longer simplest the total bridges, however also the 2-dimensional sensors monolithically -- from one piece," Ueberschär provides. For this purpose, the researchers separate a layer of material off a wafer and etch the desired shape out. The trick lies within the subsequent laser remedy: This permits the scientists to regulate the favored magnetic directions at will.

As small because the dot at the "i"

any other advantage: the new sensor isn't even quite a square millimeter in size, as a result being only about 1/2 the size as former models. The smaller the mini-chips are, the more programs they may be suitable for. as an example for magnetic area cameras, containing severa sensors in several traces and columns, recording magnetic data. If a high decision is to be performed, the sensors ought to be as small as possible -- only then do they fit in close proximity to each other and do not together interfere.

Magnetic sensor era isn't limited to clever-phones. it is used wherever damaging ambient conditions prevail and different measurement techniques would fail -- as an example in fluids or warm oil baths. they are additionally determined in automobiles, for example in fully digital equipment levers which include are installed in more recent automobiles inside the middle console or on the steerage wheel. And in scientific diagnostics they may be used to hint tropical diseases and other viruses and bacteria.