A semiconductor Hall plate-based sensor can provide information about package stress and can be substantially immune to the influence of magnetic fields. In an example, the sensor can include a Hall plate and an excitation circuit. The excitation circuit can provide signals to respective node pairs of the Hall plate. A measurement circuit can receive information about a first electric signal at a first pair of nodes in response to a first portion of the excitation signal, and can receive information about a second electric signal at a second pair of nodes in response to a second portion of the excitation signal. The first and second electric signals can indicate a charge carrier mobility characteristic of the semiconductor, which can be used to provide an indication of physical stress on the sensor.

The semiconductor device includes a magnetic switch provided to a semiconductor substrate. The magnetic switch includes: a horizontal Hall element including first electrodes and second electrodes arranged at positions perpendicular to the first electrodes; a switch circuit configured to select a drive current direction of the Hall element from four directions; an SH comparator configured to alternately perform a first operation for sampling a signal transmitted from the Hall element and a second operation for sending a signal which is based on a result of comparing a value of the sampled signal and a reference value; a latch circuit configured to hold this sent signal and send the held signal as a latch output signal; and a control circuit configured to select the drive current direction in each of a period for the first operation and a period for the second operation based on the latch output signal.

Methods and apparatus for a current sensor having an elongate current conductor having an input and an output and a longitudinal axis. First, second, third and fourth magnetic field sensing elements are coupled in a bridge configuration and positioned in a plane parallel to a surface of the current conductor such that the second and fourth magnetic field sensing elements comprise inner elements and the first and third magnetic field sensing elements comprise outer elements. Embodiments of the sensor reduce the effects of stray fields on the sensor.

Signal processing circuit for a Hall sensor and signal processing method. Signal processing circuits for four-phase spinning Hall magnetic field sensors, corresponding methods and corresponding magnetic field sensor apparatuses are provided. In this case, a correction signal (c) is generated on the basis of a first feedback signal (fb1) and a second feedback signal (fb2), wherein the first feedback signal (fb1) is provided with a shorter signal propagation time than the second feedback signal (fb2).

A semiconductor device includes a vertical Hall element provided in a first region of a semiconductor substrate, and having the first to the third electrodes arranged side by side in order along a first straight line; a circuit provided in a second region of the semiconductor substrate different from the first region, and having a heat source; and a second straight line intersecting orthogonally a current path for a Hall element drive current which flows between the first electrode and the third electrode. The second line passes a center of the vertical Hall element, and a center point of a region which reaches the highest temperature in the circuit during an operation of the vertical Hall element lies on the second straight line.

A position sensor device includes position sensor elements for generating analog sense signals. A digitization circuit is provided for a digital signal representative of the input phase based on the analog sense signals and a digital processing unit. An output signal is indicative of the position based on the first output of the processing unit. The processing unit comprises an error signal generator for computing an error signal indicative of a phase difference between the digital signal and a feedback signal. A digital filter filters the error signal to generate the first output. A feedback path provides the feedback signal based on the first output and a filter selector to select a filter to be applied from different filters. At least one input on which a common filter circuit operates is scaled differently for each of the different filters to select different filter bandwidths.

The innovative concept described herein relates to a magnetic angle sensor system having a rotatable shaft, a permanent magnet coupled to the rotatable shaft, and a magnetic field sensor arranged opposite the permanent magnet, wherein the magnetic field sensor is configured to detect a magnetic field prevailing in its detection region. The magnetic angle sensor system comprises means for reducing and/or compensating for an inhomogeneous stray field component of a per se homogeneous external magnetic stray field.

We use the AC Hall effect to characterize a magnetic field at an unknown frequency (or frequencies). The current to the Hall sensor is driven at a known frequency f. The output Hall voltage is characterized in a frequency range from f1 to f2 (with f<f1<f2 and f2−f1<2f). This provides a measurement of the magnetic field in a frequency range from f1−f to f2−f. The resulting measurement of magnetic field spectral components is phase-independent and requires no prior knowledge of exact magnetic field frequency.

A method can use a current sensor that can include a magnetic flux concentrator along with first and second magnetic field sensing elements disposed proximate to the magnetic flux concentrator, wherein the magnetic flux concentrator is operable to influence a direction of first and second magnetic fields at the first and second magnetic field sensing elements, respectively, the first and second magnetic fields resulting from an electrical current passing through a conductor, the first and second magnetic field sensing elements operable to generate first and second signals, respectively, in response to the first and second magnetic fields, respectively, wherein the current sensor can also include a differencing circuit operable to subtract the first and second signals to generate a difference signal related to the electrical current.

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.