Allegro MicroSystems has introduced the new A33230 SINE/cosine 3D Hall Effect position sensor IC, which claims to be the smallest sine/cosine 3D sensor on the market today. It provides system designers with a cost-effective solution for automotive and industrial applications that can be brought to market in a short period of time.
This device includes two discrete analog signal paths, has excellent high-speed performance, and the small sot23-w package size makes it very suitable for PCB space, which is a very valuable situation.An IC can also be used as an Angle sensor if the system includes an ECU capable of performing CORDIC calculations on both outputs.
The device consists of a vertical and flat Hall effect element with orthogonal sensing axes to provide 90 degree phase separation and is not affected by magnetic pole spacing and air gap. It can be pre-programmed to measure the angle of any plane (XY, XZ or YZ) while also providing independent sine and cosine outputs.
Scott Milne, head of Allegro's position and angle sensors business unit, said: "Hall effect sine / cosine sensors can sense electric fields in the X, y and Z planes and are reliable and proven choices in many applications." The launch of a33230 provides Allegro customers with more choice of position and angle sensors for automotive and industrial applications, such as factory robots, windshield wipers, in car motors, etc. This is a low-cost solution with small footprint, which is ideal for legacy applications that need to minimize PCB size or find opportunities to reduce BOM costs. "
