A magnetic sensor that includes a Hall element; a switch circuit configured to switch a direction of a drive current supplied to the Hall element between a first direction and a second direction; a magnetic field detection circuit configured to execute a detection operation for detecting a target magnetic field acting on the Hall element, based on a first difference between a Hall voltage generated in the Hall element when the drive current is supplied to the Hall element in the first direction and a Hall voltage generated in the Hall element when the drive current is supplied to the Hall element in the second direction; and a test magnetic field generation circuit configured to generate a test magnetic field different from the target magnetic field in a test operation.

A Hall sensor includes a Hall well, such as an implanted region in a surface layer of a semiconductor structure, and four doped regions spaced apart from one another in the implanted region. The implanted region and the doped regions include majority carriers of the same conductivity type. The sensor also includes a dielectric layer that extends over the implanted region, and an electrode layer over the dielectric layer to operate as a control gate to set or adjust the sensor performance. A first supply circuit provides a first bias signal to a first pair of the terminals, and a second supply circuit provides a second bias signal to the electrode layer.

A sensor system for measuring a physical quantity includes: a bridge sensor having at least two terminal pairs, a current source for applying a bias current between the bias terminal pair, resulting in a differential sensor signal on a readout terminal pair, wherein the differential sensor signal is indicative for the physical quantity, and an amplifier comprising a first input node and a second input node for receiving the differential signal and at least one output node, wherein the amplifier is configured for amplifying the differential sensor signal and putting the resulting signal on the at least one output node, wherein the sensor system is configured such that, in operation, the amplifier is powered by at least part of the bias current.

The semiconductor device includes a Hall element, a first differential pair, a second differential pair, an output amplifier circuit, and a voltage divider circuit. The Hall element outputs a signal that is dependent on stress to be applied to a semiconductor substrate to the first differential pair. The voltage divider circuit divides a voltage into a divided voltage having a voltage dividing ratio that is dependent on the stress. The first differential pair outputs a first current based on the signal. The second differential pair outputs a second current based on the divided voltage and a reference voltage. The output amplifier circuit outputs a voltage based on the first and second currents. A gain of the output amplifier circuit is approximated by a sum of a difference between stress dependence coefficients of transconductances of the first and second differential pairs and a stress dependence coefficient of the voltage dividing ratio.

A Hall sensor includes a first Hall element pair configured to provide a first measurement signal, a second Hall element pair configured to provide a second measurement signal, and a third Hall element pair configured to provide a third measurement signal. Each element in the third Hall element pair is arranged between Hall elements of the first Hall element pair and Hall elements of the second Hall element pair. The Hall element pairs are configured to be actuated such that the first, second, and third measurement signals can be combined into one aggregate measurement signal which corrects an error in an angle of rotation determination caused by an external magnetic field.

A magnetic sensor using a spin-orbit torque (SOT) and a sensing method using the same, include an SOT channel layer made of a heavy metal material, a ferromagnetic layer stacked on the SOT channel layer, and a protective layer stacked on the ferromagnetic layer, wherein an SOT is generated due to a current applied to the SOT channel layer to vary magnetization of the ferromagnetic layer, and the magnetic sensor which utilizes an SOT with a fast response speed and high sensitivity using a simplified metal thin film structure in which the SOT is generated is provided.

A high bandwidth Hall sensor includes a high bandwidth path and a low bandwidth path. The relatively high offset (from sensor offset) of the high bandwidth path is estimated using a relatively low offset generated by the low bandwidth path. The relatively high offset of the high bandwidth path is substantially reduced by combining the output of the high bandwidth path with the output of the low bandwidth path to generate a high bandwidth, low offset output. The offset can be further reduced by including transimpedance amplifiers in the high bandwidth sensors to optimize the frequency response of high bandwidth Hall sensor.

A Hall element is integrated on a single substrate and is capable of cancelling offset voltage with a spinning switch configured to switch spinning current and capable of simultaneously detecting a horizontal direction magnetic field and a vertical direction magnetic field. The Hall element has a four-fold rotational axis and includes a P-type semiconductor substrate layer formed of P-type silicon, a vertical magnetic field detection N-type doped region formed on the P-type semiconductor substrate layer, and eight horizontal magnetic field detection N-type doped regions formed so as to surround the vertical magnetic field detection N-type doped region.

Hall sensing signals are received in a spinning readout pattern of subsequent readout phases, wherein the pattern is cyclically repeated at a spinning frequency and a polarity of the Hall sensor signals is reversed in two non-adjacent readout phases of the readout pattern. A signal storage circuit includes signal storage capacitors. An accumulation circuit includes accumulation capacitors. A switch network is selectively actuated to couple the signal storage capacitors with the accumulation capacitors synchronously with phases in the spinning readout pattern in subsequent alternating first and second periods. The spinning output is stored with alternating opposite signs on the signal storage capacitors and the Hall sensing signals are stored in the signal storage capacitors and then accumulated on the accumulation capacitors with alternate signs in subsequent periods. The accumulated output signal is then demodulated with a demodulation frequency half the spinning frequency.

A magnetic-field-sensitive MOSFET (MagFET) is described herein. In accordance with one embodiment, the MagFET comprises a semiconductor body, a first well region arranged in the semiconductor body and being doped with dopants of a first doping type, and a number of N contact regions arranged in the first well region and doped with dopants of a second doping type, which is complementary to the first doping type, wherein N is equal to or greater than three. A gate electrode covers the first well region between the contact regions. The gate electrode is separated from the first well region by an isolation layer and is configured to control a charge carrier density in the first well region between the contact regions dependent on a voltage applied at the gate electrode. The first well region has a center of symmetry and the contact regions are arranged rotationally symmetric with respect to the center of symmetry with a rotational symmetry of order N.