A low-offset spinning-current hall plate

Abstract An offset-reduction method for Hall plates has been developed which minimizes the influence of the stress and the temperature on the offset. The new method uses only one single symmetrical Hall plate in which the direction of the current is made to spin by contact commutation with steps of π/6 radians or smaller. The consecutive Hall voltages are averaged over time and the offset cancels out. The residual offset is about a factor of 10 less than that specified for commercially available silicon Hall plates and is limited by inhomogeneities in the plate.