A Novel High-Precision Digital Tunneling Magnetic Resistance-Type Sensor for the Nanosatellites’ Space Application

Micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) magnetic sensors are widely used in the nanosatellites field. We proposed a novel high-precision miniaturized three-axis digital tunneling magnetic resistance-type (TMR) sensor. The design of the three-axis digital magnetic sensor includes a low-noise sensitive element and high-performance interface circuit. The TMR sensor element can achieve a background noise of 150 pT/Hz1/2 by the vertical modulation film at a modulation frequency of 5 kHz. The interface circuit is mainly composed of an analog front-end current feedback instrumentation amplifier (CFIA) with chopper structure and a fully differential 4th-order Sigma-Delta (ΣΔ) analog to digital converter (ADC). The low-frequency 1/f noise of the TMR magnetic sensor are reduced by the input-stage and system-stage chopper. The dynamic element matching (DEM) is applied to average out the mismatch between the input and feedback transconductor so as to improve the gain accuracy and gain drift. The digital output is achieved by a switched-capacitor ΣΔ ADC. The interface circuit is implemented by a 0.35 μm CMOS technology. The performance test of the TMR magnetic sensor system shows that: at a 5 V operating voltage, the sensor can achieve a power consumption of 120 mW, a full scale of ±1 Guass, a bias error of 0.01% full scale (FS), a nonlinearity of x-axis 0.13% FS, y-axis 0.11% FS, z-axis 0.15% FS and a noise density of x-axis 250 pT/Hz1/2 (at 1 Hz), y-axis 240 pT/Hz1/2 (at 1 Hz), z-axis 250 pT/Hz1/2 (at 1 Hz), respectively. This work has a less power consumption, a smaller size, and higher resolution than other miniaturized magnetometers by comparison.

[1]  P. Lai,et al.  Review of Noise Sources in Magnetic Tunnel Junction Sensors , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics.

[2]  Shan X. Wang,et al.  Prediction and Optimization of Linearity of MTJ Magnetic Sensors Based on Single-Domain Model , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics.

[3]  KiYoung Nam,et al.  A low-voltage low-power sigma-delta modulator for broadband analog-to-digital conversion , 2005, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[4]  Kong-Pang Pun,et al.  A chopper-stabilized high-pass Delta-Sigma Modulator with reduced chopper charge injection , 2011, Microelectron. J..

[5]  Klaus Hofmann,et al.  Noise study of open-loop direct current-current transformer using magneto-resistance sensors , 2016, 2016 IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium (SAS).

[6]  Michiel Steyaert,et al.  A 250 mV 7.5 μW 61 dB SNDR SC ΔΣ Modulator Using Near-Threshold-Voltage-Biased Inverter Amplifiers in 130 nm CMOS , 2012, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[7]  Yoshinori Kusuda.  Auto Correction Feedback for ripple suppression in a chopper amplifier , 2009, 2009 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.

[8]  Feilu Luo,et al.  Integrating magnetoresistive sensors with microelectromechanical systems for noise reduction , 2012 .

[9]  Gang Xiao,et al.  In situ detection of single micron-sized magnetic beads using magnetic tunnel junction sensors , 2005 .

[10]  Xiaobo Wu,et al.  Low-Power and Hardware Efficient Decimation Filters in Sigma-Delta A/D Converters , 2005, 2005 IEEE Conference on Electron Devices and Solid-State Circuits.

[11]  N. Djuzhev,et al.  Magnetoresistive sensor with high sensitivity: Self-aligned magnetic structures , 2017, 2017 IEEE International Magnetics Conference (INTERMAG).

[12]  T. Sagara,et al.  Magnetoresistive Sensors , 1993, IEEE Translation Journal on Magnetics in Japan.

[13]  J. Lenz,et al.  Magnetic sensors and their applications , 2006, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[14]  Amit Kant Pandit,et al.  Oversampled Sigma Delta ADC decimation filter: Design techniques, challenges, tradeoffs and optimization , 2015, 2015 2nd International Conference on Recent Advances in Engineering & Computational Sciences (RAECS).

[15]  Michael Pedersen,et al.  Progress toward a thousandfold reduction in 1∕f noise in magnetic sensors using an ac microelectromechanical system flux concentrator (invited) , 2006 .

[16]  Q. Fu,et al.  A closed-loop Sigma-Delta modulator for a tunneling magneto-resistance sensor , 2017, IEICE Electron. Express.

[17]  Pak Kwong Chan,et al.  A Power-Aware Chopper-Stabilized Instrumentation Amplifier for Resistive Wheatstone Bridge Sensors , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[18]  P. Ripka,et al.  Advances in magnetic sensors , 2008, 2008 IEEE Sensors.

[19]  F. Maloberti,et al.  A low-power multi-bit /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator in 90-nm digital CMOS without DEM , 2005, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[20]  Philip W. T. Pong,et al.  Advances in magnetometry , 2007, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[21]  Pavel Ripka,et al.  Advances in Magnetic Field Sensors , 2010, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[22]  Paulo P. Freitas,et al.  1/f noise in linearized low resistance MgO magnetic tunnel junctions , 2006 .

[23]  Magnetic flux modulation with a piezoelectric silicon bridge for 1/f noise reduction in magnetoresistive sensors , 2013, 2013 IEEE SENSORS.

[24]  Chih-Cheng Lu,et al.  Planarization, Fabrication, and Characterization of Three-Dimensional Magnetic Field Sensors , 2018, IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology.

[25]  Shan X. Wang,et al.  Novel Method for Magnetic Field Vector Measurement Based on Dual-Axial Tunneling Magnetoresistive Sensors , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics.

[26]  Hesham N. Ahmed,et al.  A low noise CMOS readout front end for MEMs BioPotential sensor applications , 2014, 2014 IEEE 57th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS).

[27]  I. Arruego,et al.  NANOSAT-01: Three Years of Mission. Magnetic Scientific Results , 2009 .

[28]  Ahmed Gharbiya,et al.  On the implementation of input-feedforward delta-sigma modulators , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs.

[29]  Junyi Wang,et al.  Reduction of magnetic 1/f noise in miniature anisotropic magnetoresistive sensors , 2015 .

[30]  E. Cupido,et al.  Magnetoresistive magnetometer for space science applications , 2012 .

[31]  Massimo Piotto,et al.  A compact instrumentation amplifier for MEMS thermal sensor interfacing , 2012 .

[32]  W. Magnes,et al.  Future Directions for Magnetic Sensors for Space Applications , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics.

[33]  Stephen E. Russek,et al.  Low-frequency noise measurements on commercial magnetoresistive magnetic field sensors , 2005 .

[34]  Claude Fermon,et al.  Femtotesla Magnetic Field Measurement with Magnetoresistive Sensors , 2004, Science.

[35]  Massimo Piotto,et al.  A Chopper Instrumentation Amplifier With Input Resistance Boosting by Means of Synchronous Dynamic Element Matching , 2017, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[36]  Guan Wang,et al.  A 1-V 23-μW 88-dB DR Sigma-Delta ADC for high-accuracy and low-power applications , 2015, 2015 IEEE 11th International Conference on ASIC (ASICON).

[37]  J. George,et al.  Effects of a thin Mg layer on the structural and magnetoresistance properties of CoFeB∕MgO∕CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions , 2007 .

[38]  Claude Fermon,et al.  Low noise magnetoresistive sensors for current measurement and compasses , 2007 .