Smart sensor system application: an integrated compass

Abstract

A fully integrable electronic compass has been designed based on the pulse position method. using micro-machined fluxgate magnetic sensors. The compass has been designed to have an accuracy of one degree. The analogue and digital circuitry in the system $t on a single Sea-of-Gates array of 200k transistors. Together with the sensors it will be combined on a single MCM.

The Integrated Compass Watch Microsystem

“…The arctangent part gets an x-and an y-value from the up-down counter and computes arctan(xly), using a cordic-like algorithm [16,17]. It uses only 8 cycles to calculate the direction with an accuracy of one degree.…”

Boundary-Scan Testing for Mixed — Signal MCMs

“…The mixed-signal BS cells were primarily designed for application in our type of sensor-based microsystems (Tangelder, 1997), which generally feature low frequencies (<10MHz) and modest voltage and current levels. Hence, the requirements of the analogue switches in the ABCs (Sunter, 1996) and (Lofstrom, 1996) are relatively modest.…”

“…Examples of their use can be found in high-end televisions, mobile telephones or a compass wristwatch (Tangelder, 1997). A cost-effective approach in testing PCBs makes use of digital boundary-scan (BS) techniques as specified in the IEEE standard 1149.1 (Bleeker, 1993).…”

Hall‐effect sensors based on AlGaN/GaN heterojunctions on Si substrates for a wide temperature range

“…Magnetic field sensing is being used widely in many scientific and industrial domains for direct measurement of fields, indirect estimation of physical variables such as position or velocity, detection of material defects etc. A few of the diverse applications include geophysical exploration [1], deep space and planetary magnetometry [2], target detection [3,4], medical imaging [5], spectroscopic investigation of chemical compounds [6], non-destructive testing of ferromagnetic and metallic objects including identification of cracks [7], readheads in disk drives [8], proximity sensing [9], rotor position sensing and speed sensing in motors [10], non-contact measurement of current through a conductor [11] and transformer in-rush current in power systems [12], fake currency detection [13] and navigation [14].…”