Integrierte Digitale Magnetfeld-Detektoren

• Main Authors: HENTSCHKE, SIEGBERT.., 34121 KASSEL, DE, REIFSCHNEIDER, NORBERT., 34121 KASSEL, DE
• Format: Patent
• Language: German
• Published: 07.03.1996
• Edition: 6
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; GYROSCOPIC INSTRUMENTS; INFORMATION STORAGE; INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORDCARRIER AND TRANSDUCER; MEASURING; MEASURING DISTANCES, LEVELS OR BEARINGS; MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES; NAVIGATION; PHOTOGRAMMETRY OR VIDEOGRAMMETRY; PHYSICS; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; SURVEYING; TESTING

Existing semiconductor magnetic field sensors are based on the analog Hall effect. Noise and sensor surface size thus limit measurement sensitivity. The described digital magnetic field sensor consists of tristable double drain Si- or GaAs transistors that jump from a state to another state among two stable states depending on the presence of a vertical magnetic field on a microscopically small surface. Direct digitalisation at the measurement site in the ns range avoids a sensitivity increase by excluding further noise influences. Besides this advantage, this principle allows an increased miniaturisation along with a very precise production process. Several thousand digital sensors may be arranged next to each other on a small semiconductor chip surface, so that time and space distributions of a magnetic field may be digitally measured in the ns- mu m range. This allows a digital video magnetic head to be designed with which video recorders may for the first time record and play back digital studio-quality video signals on conventional tapes. Also disclosed is the design of a miniaturised digital compass.