Integrated high-performance magnetometers study in silicon technology

Overview & Synopsis

The subject of thesis subject concerns the study of magnetic field sensors integrated in low-voltage standard CMOS process without additional post-processing steps. Co-integrating the magnetic transducer (the sensitive element transforming the magnetic field into an electrical quantity) together with its conditioning electronics onto a same chip allows to implement specific features, which dramatically improve the sensor performances. This work particularly focuses on two types of transducer: the vertical Hall device and a specific magneto-transistor called “CHOPFET”. We developed numerical simulation models in order to predict and optimize the behavior of these transducers. Based on the results, we adapted dedicated signal processing techniques and proposed several innovative magnetic signal conditioning architectures. This led to significant improvement in terms of resolution, offset and power consumption.