GMR and SDT sensor applications

Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) and Spin Dependent Tunneling (SDT) material structures are highly sensitive to magnetic fields and can be miniaturized and integrated with silicon circuits. These characteristics lend themselves to several applications including magnetic field sensing, galvanic isolators, and array sensing. Designs of highly miniaturized digital magnetic sensors using both a GMR bridge chip and a signal conditioning chip in a single small package are being used in cylinder position applications. Isolators using integrated coils and GMR sensors with on-chip electronics offer speed enhancements over established opto-isolator technology, and may improve system performance where ground noise is a limiting factor. Arrays of GMR or SDT sensors could have applications in nondestructive evaluation, vehicle detection, and bio-assay applications, and with the on-chip intelligence available in these sensors, could lead to "brilliant" sensing.