TDK Corporation expands its Micronas position sensor portfolio with the Hall effect sensor family HAL 39xy featuring stray-field compensation capability built on the highly flexible architecture for multidimensional magnetic-field measurements marketed under the trademark masterHAL. The sensors meet today’s and tomorrow’s automotive and industrial market needs and offer four different measurement modes in a single device: Linear position detection, rotary 360° angle detection and rotary 180° angle detection with stray field compensation including gradient fields as well as the capability for real 3D magnetic field measurement (BX, BY, BZ).
The heart of the HAL 39xy sensors is the patented 3D HAL pixel cell technology. It helps not only to measure magnetic fields very accurately, but it is also insensitive to stray fields. The unique concept is based on an array of Hall plates. Each measurement mode uses a different combination of them to enable best performance in each mode. The highly flexible sensor array of the masterHAL sensor line helps design engineers to select the best operation mode for any given measurement task. The HAL 39xy is the only solution available on the market that integrates all four modes in a single device. Customers only have to qualify one device instead of various different hardware versions. The new sensors are ideal for a wide range of applications, including all kind of valves and actuators, selectors and gear shifters, pedal-position detection, position detection in transmission systems, steering-angle detection, or chassis-position detection.
Thanks to its flexible architecture, the HAL 39xy sensor family offers a wide range of configuration possibilities. It features a powerful DSP and an embedded microcontroller. The DSP is responsible for fast signal processing, while the microcontroller performs the interface configuration and supervision of the functional safety-related tasks. TDK-Micronas offers the development of customized firmware for the DSP and the microcontroller. Together with the flexible Hall sensor front-end, this enables customers to realize new kinds of applications. The innovative architecture of the HAL 39xy sensors makes it easy for customers to develop new solutions using fast prototyping techniques. It also enables quick and easy adaptation to changes in interface standards such as SENT, SPI, and PSI5.
First samples will be available in the first quarter 2019. Further sensor variants, for example a dual-die version with redundancy functionality or with integrated capacitors are under development.