Allegro MicroSystems Europe has announced the release of a family of Micropower Hall-effect switch ICs, the APS11700 and APS11760, designed specifically for battery-powered applications in harsh industrial and automotive environments. Automatic power management enables average supply current as low as 6µA while operating directly from a vehicle battery or other unregulated supply. The power management happens in the background and is transparent to the host system, making them a drop-in upgrade for existing Hall-effect switches or a solid-state replacement for mechanical microswitches or reed switches.
"Thanks to the APS11700/760’s unique combination of ruggedness and ultra-low power, there is finally a reliable, solid-state upgrade for reed and microswitches, even in the most power-sensitive applications where the sensor will be connected directly to the battery," explained Jim Judkins, Product Line Director for Allegro's Position Sensor ICs.
These monolithic devices include either a standard Hall plate or a vertical Hall plate, a small-signal amplifier, chopper stabilisation, a Schmitt trigger, automatic power management controller, and an NMOS output transistor. The APS11700 uses a standard planar Hall-effect sensing element, while the APS11760 implements AVHT technology in the form of a silicon-based vertical Hall-effect sensing element. The APS11760 devices are therefore sensitive to magnetic flux parallel to the face of the IC package, mimicking the in-plane sensitivity of common reed switches.
The APS11700/760 devices come preconfigured with the user’s choice of magnetic sensitivity, thresholds and polarity; there is also a choice of active-high or active-low output for ease of integration into electronic subsystems. These ICs are qualified to AEC-Q100 Grade 0 and compliant with ISO 26262:2011 ASIL A when properly applied, making them suitable for automotive and other safety systems. They can tolerate up to 40V and junction temperature up to 165°C. In addition, they are internally protected against overvoltage, reverse-battery, load-dump, output short-circuits, human-body-model ESD up to ±11kV, and other EMC conditions.