Modern Smart Hall Sensor Technology and its Application in Contactless Position Measurement

Introduction
Hall Sensors are well known as robust, accurate and cheap components for any kind of position measurement. Declared obsolete with each arrival of a new technology (magnetoresistive, magnetoimpedance, magnetotunneling), Hall sensors have nevertheless managed to increase their field of application continuously, due to their complete compatibility with integrated microelectronic circuits.

Every modern car today contains between 15 and 50 Hall sensors and over 50 million cars are manufactured each year worldwide. Modern smart Hall sensors are rather monolithic computers with co-integrated Hall cells, than just "field-to-voltage" transducers. They feature extraordinary versatility, precision and robustness and can be manufactured in very high volume at a low per-unit cost.

Christian Schott and Vincent Hiligsmann of Melexis will present a tutorial "Modern Smart Hall Sensor Technology and its Application in Contactless Position Measurement " at IEEE sensors 2006 in Daegu, Korea, on Sunday, Oct 22, 2006. Space is limited, so please reserve your place.

The tutorial will be given in two parts:

Part 1: A presentation on Hall sensor basics, components and architecture of smart Hall sensor systems, and their application in position measurement.

Part 2: "Hands-On-Halls" practical experience for the participants.

We use the example of a generic smart Hall sensor which is capable of measuring all three magnetic field components separately and simultaneously. A prepared demoboard with USB interface and a demo software will be provided for small groups of the participants. With this equipment and a laptop computer the participants will be able to "sense" how the magnetic field of a moving or rotating magnet is used for retrieving information on linear or angular position. Some examples are then used to illustrate the industrial and automotive implementation of the prior sensing experience. Examples may be an industrial two-axis joystick, a car pedal application, a throttle sensor or others (we have to specify later). The tutorial adresses all actual and potential users of contactless position measurement as well as all people who are generally interested in modern microelectronic smart sensor technology.