TEKNIK ELEKTRONIKA

Freescale Semiconductor has announced a new magnetometer chip for mobile devices incorporating magnetic compass capability, which it claims is smaller and consumes less power than competing devices. The Xtrinsic MAG3110 three-axis sensor can be used to determine headings for navigation, dead-reckoning, and various location-based services (LBSs). The MAG3110 is a quarter of the size of the currently most commonly used magnetometer chip, and its current consumption is only 25 μA, also a quarter or less that that of competing devices.

Although a smartphone can use GPS to determine its location, it requires a compass built around a three-axis magnetometer to allow it to determine heading at that location. With a magnetometer, devices such as smartphones, touchscreen tablets and other mobile devices can also determine their heading even without a GPS signal. The Xtrinsic MAG3110 is compatible with currently available LBS applications such as Foursquare, Facebook Places and Google's Goggles.

The Freescale magnetometer uses three small magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) to sense changes in the magnetic field. A separate ASIC, wirebonded inside the package to the magnetometer die, provides the intelligence to compensate for nearby magnetic fields from other components on the circuit board. Freescale's Sensor Toolbox software development environment includes algorithms for compensating for both hard-iron and soft-iron interference. The ASIC also converts the analogue output from the magnetometer die into a digital signal using an I2C interface.

 

Image:  Freescale

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Freescale sensors website



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