The XC3202B from Torex Semiconductor Europe is a Hall-effect magnetic sensor IC with a built-in CMOS driver suitable for battery portable applications such as mobile phones, electronic dictionaries and hand-held game consoles. It features a low current consumption of 8µA with VDD of 3V. Packaging is small, particularly the QFN-0601 which is under development, whose dimensions are 2x2x0.6mm. Once every 75ms, in order to carry out a measurement, the supply current of the sensor increases to 3mA -IDD(en)- for a duration of 75µs. The rest of the time, the sensing circuits of the plates and the latch circuitry are turned off in order to bring the supply current down to 5µA -IDD(dis). The sensor translates the magnetic field detected into a voltage that can be used to control the two integrated FETs at its output side. Being omnipolar, it does not differentiate between north pole and south pole magnetic fluxes, hence its output becomes low whenever the magnetism becomes strong enough.
