CMOS Three Axis Hall Sensor and Joystick Application

Christian Schott
Sentron AG, Switzerland christian@sentron.ch

Robert Racz
Sentron AG, Switzerland robi@sentron.ch

Samuel Huber
Sentron AG, Switzerland samuel@sentron.ch

Abstract We present for the first time a three-axis CMOS Hall sensor based on integrated magnetic concentrator technology (IMC). The sensor measures the two in-plane magnetic field components Bx and By and the vertical component Bz and generates three output voltages proportional to them. The sensing core consists of four Hall elements arranged at 90 under the edge of a ferromagnetic disk (IMC), which is attached to the silicon die. By subtracting the Hall voltages of two opposite Hall elements a voltage proportional to the in-plane components is generated and by adding them a voltage proportional to the perpendicular component. In such a way a planar structure is used to implement a threeaxis sensor device. The sensor further contains current sources, dynamic offset compensation and signal amplification and conditioning. The sensor aims for applications where two translatory or rotational movements have to be measured independently and precisely over a large temperature range. Examples are joysticks, car mirror sensors and other control devices. Keywords 3-axis Hall sensor, angle sensor, joystick sensor INTRODUCTION Traditionally Hall sensors in CMOS technology can only be used to measure the magnetic field component perpendicular to the chip plane. This is due to the fact that CMOS is a planar technology providing only for very shallow structures. Therefore such a sensor can only measure field strength and not field direction. For direction measurement several units have to be accurately assembled which makes the whole sensor bulky and expensive. The advantage of direction measurement over field strength measurement lies in the fact that ageing effects, temperature drift effects and sometimes even some mechanical tolerances of magnet and sensor are virtually eliminated. With the integration of ferromagnetic flux concentrators (IMC) directly on Hall-ASICs [1] also the two in-plane magnetic field components can be measured. The in-plane magnetic field is locally deflected under the edge of the metal layer and can so be measured by conventional CMOS Hall elements (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: IMC Principle: A horizontal magnetic field parallel to the chip is locally rotated by the ferromagnetic flux concentrator so that it can be measured by ordinary planar Hall elements.

IMC technology has lead to a series of products for contactless current sensing and angle sensing [2]. The benefits are additional passive amplification leading to higher signal-to-noise and signal-to-offset ratios as well as the possibility to measure several components of the magnetic field in the same chip. A recently presented angle sensor [3] with a ferromagnetic IMC disk measures two orthogonal in-plane components. OPERATION OF 3-AXIS SENSOR The three-axis Hall sensor which we present here combines the measurement principle of classical Hall sensors with the one of IMC Hall sensors. Similar to the angle sensor the IMC is of disk-shape and four Hall elements are arranged at each 90 under the disk edge (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Top-View photograph of disk-shape magnetic concentrator and arrangement of the Hall plates

0-7803-8692-2/04/$20.00 2004 IEEE.

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The two in-plane magnetic field components Bx and By are measured by subtracting the Hall voltages of two opposite Hall elements. (Fig. 3 Phase X, Phase Y). For the third perpendicular field component Bz, the same Hall elements as for X are employed, but now their output voltages are added like in an ordinary Hall sensor without IMC (Fig. 3 Phase Z). This yields the voltage Vz proportional to the perpendicular magnetic field component Bz. The three signals are then amplified, filtered and brought to the output pins.

Figure 4: 3-Axis Hall Sensor Block Diagram including modulated amplification, buffering and filtering of the outputs and one-time programming cell for parameter selection.

A photograph of the silicon chip is given in Figure 5.

Figure 3: Subtracting the voltages of two opposite Hall elements yields the in-plane voltages Vx and Vy, whereas addition yields the perpendicular voltage Vz

ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT The three-axis Hall sensor is a fully self contained electronic circuit fabricated in 0.8um standard CMOS technology. No external parts are required for operation. Besides the Hall element system it contains all necessary circuitry for signal adding and subtracting, amplification, offset reduction, biasing of the Hall elements and buffering and filtering the output voltages. In order to use the same amplification chain for the three channels, Vx, Vy and Vz are measured by a time-slicing architecture. Figure 4 shows the block diagram with the power pins VDD and GND, the three ratiometric outputs Vx, Vy and Vz and the three pins used for programming. A one-time programming cell allows to adjust various parameters like offset, gain and power consumption. In such a way speed, sensitivity and the allowable current consumption can be defined by the user depending on his application

Figure 5: Photograph of the realized 3-Axis Hall Sensor with magnetic concentrator

The die size is about 2.9 x 1.9 mm and the size of the ferromagnetic disk is 0.2mm. In such a way all three components of the magnetic field are measured in a very small spot. This brings the advantage, that all three measurement axes are subject to the same. After manufacturing the chip is packaged in standard SO-8 plastic package. BASIC MEASUREMENT For a first evaluation the sensor was placed in a rotating magnetic field and its outputs were monitored. For a rotation in the XY-plane around the Z-axis, the outputs Vx and Vy show Sin and Cos functions with about the same amplitude, whereas Vz remains about zero (Fig. 6). For a rotation in the XZ plane around the Y-axis, Vx and Vz show Sin and Cos functions and Vy remains about zero (Fig. 7). A cross-talk between the axes could not be found. The amplitude of Vz is about half that of Vx. This is due to the

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missing magnetic gain of the IMC in Z direction. The output signal amplitudes are proportional to the applied field strength and yield a value of 1.8V for X and Y and 0.9V for Z for a field of 40mT. From these values a sensitivity of 45V/T respectively 22.5V/T is calculated. Depending on the application this value can be either doubled or cut to half by setting the corresponding programming parameters. The noise level of the three outputs is only a few mV so that an angular resolution of about 0.1 is reached. Additionally to normal operation with a current consumption of 16mA, the sensor can also be operated in a low power mode with 3mA current consumption.
Vx [mV] 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 -500 -1000 -1500 -2000 -2500 0 45 90 135 180 225 270 mechanical angle [] 315 360 Vy [mV] Vz [mV]

Figure 8: Gimbaled Mount Type Joystick

Figure 6: Measured sensor outputs for a rotation of the magnetic field in the XY-plane
Vx [mV] 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 -500 -1000 -1500 -2000 -2500 0 45 90 135 180 225 270 mechanical angle [] 315 360 Vy [mV] Vz [mV]

Vx, Vy, Vz [mV]

The situation of the magnetic field components for inclining the stick along the two directions is illustrated in Figs 9-11. Fig. 9 shows the situation where the stick is vertical, so that only the Bz component is present.

Figure 9: In center position all the field is perpendicular to the chip

Figure 7: Measured sensor outputs for a rotation of the magnetic field in the XZ-plane

JOYSTICK APPLICATION Principle Due to measuring the magnetic field components along three orthogonal axes simultaneously, the device can be used to measure field direction in two different planes. A very typical application to illustrate this principle is the contactless magnetic joystick. Figure 8 shows such a joystick where a permanent magnet in the stick rotates in a semi-sphere above the sensor. The magnetization axis of the magnet is always directed towards the sensor.

Vx, Vy, Vz [mV]

Why three axes ? First reason: Inclining the stick along the angles and (Fig. 10) results in a sine function field components for X and Y and in a cosine field decrease for Z.

Figure 10: The horizontal field components depend on the total field strenght B, whereas the ratios Bx/Bz and By/Bz are indpendent of B.

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We can see, that as long as B is constant, Bx and By are sufficient to yield the inclination angles. However, when B changes (age, temperature etc) an error occurs. In this case the field independent angle information is obtained by building the ratios Bx/Bz and By/Bz. Second reason: If the stick is inclined along both axes at the same time (Fig. 11), then all three measured components depend upon both inclination angles and . However, building the ratios Bx/Bz and By/Bz two angles can be decorrelated.
drift []

Signal drift with 60 temperature change 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2 -2.5 -40 Vx Vx / Vz

TC

0ppm/C

TC = -1250ppm/C -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30

inclination angle []

Figure 13: Measured drift of the output position signal with temperature. When only one channel is used the drift is about -1100ppm/C whereas with the ratio Vx/Vz virtually no drift is present.

Figure 11: All three magnetic field components depend on both inclination angles and .

Third reason: Due to mechanical tolerances or caused by wear-out the distance between magnet and sensor may change (Fig. 12). In this case the total field strenght B also changes and with it the one of the three field components Bx, By and Bz.

The voltage Vx changes for an equivalent of about 2 for an inclination angle of 25. This corresponds to a temperature coefficient of -1250ppm/C which is the sum of the TC of sensitivity of the sensor and the TC of the magnet. On the other hand, the difference of the ratio of the voltages Vx/Vz at both temperatures remains nearly perfectly zero. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK By the integration of a ferromagnetic layer on a CMOS Hall circuit three orthogonal magnetic measurement axes can be realized in one single chip. Such a sensor allows to measure the magnetic field direction in two orthogonal planes, representing the two spherical angles of a two-axis joystick. The principle of building the ratio of the in-plane magnetic field components Bx and By with the vertical component Bz not only makes the inclination angle signal independent of magnet strength and distance magnet to sensor, it also virtually eliminates all effects of temperature drift and ageing. In such a way the three-axis Hall sensor is the ideal component to build accurate, robust and low-cost magnetic joysticks. For further convenience the CMOS can be equipped with a divider logic so that the outputs are already the desired angle signals. This can be either done in an analog way by using a PI-regulator feedback [4], or in a digital way by using an on-chip microcontroller. REFERENCES [1] US Patent 6545462 [2] For more info, datasheets etc, see www.sentron.ch [3] R. S. Popovic et al., A new CMOS Hall angular Position sensor, tm Technisches Messen, 68, June 2001, pp. 286-291. [4] US Patent 6731108, Fig. 11

Figure 12: By changing the distance magnet to sensor the total field strength and the one of the components changes, whereas the ratios Bx/Bz and By/Bz remain constant.

If here again we only rely upon measurement of the components, this changes leads to errors. However, the ratios Bx/Bz and By/Bz cancel out the total field change and a distance change has no effect. Temperature Drift To illustrate the influence of temperature variation on the position drift when only the field strenght is used, we have performed a temperature drift measurement. Fig. 13 shows how much the output signal at a fixed inclination position changes in degree angle for a temperature increase of 60C.

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