Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IISHall sensor and micromagnet on a single chip
Conventional sensor-magnet assemblies are increasingly constrained by installation space, alignment tolerances and the use of rare-earth materials. MicroBias is a sensor technology that overcomes these constraints by monolithically integrating a permanent micromagnet directly into the sensor chip at wafer-level.
This allows the magnetic field source, sensing elements and signal-processing algorithms to be designed as a single optimized system. Unlike conventional back-biased assemblies, magnet and sensor structures are aligned with sub-micrometre precision, enabling application-specific magnetic field shaping and highly efficient use of magnetic material.
As a result, MicroBias achieves the performance of significantly larger conventional systems while reducing sensor-magnet volume by up to 100 times and rare-earth magnet material by up to 99 %. This combination of miniaturization, precision and material efficiency opens new possibilities for compact, precise and resource-efficient motion and condition sensing.