Hall Sensors Using Piezoresistive Transducer Fabrication Process

A piezoresistive transducer (PRT) pressure sensor would be able to sense a magnetic field and provide an adequate Hall effect output. In this study, two different types of boron-doped transducers, X-ducer and picture-frame transducer (also called micro Wheatstone-bridge transducer) were tested for the Hall effect. It is found that the currently used fabrication process and packaging for PRT pressure sensors do not need to be altered for Hall sensors. However, a slight mask modification is necessary to use an X-ducer instead of a picture-frame transducer for the Hall effect sensing because the X-ducer is at least 50 times more sensitive than the picture-frame transducer. The sensitivity calculated using the Hall theory and estimated hole mobility velocity is in reasonably good agreement with experimental results.