Magnetic sensors are a key enabling technology for automotive, industrial, consumer and emerging medical/HMI applications. Driven by demand for higher sensitivity, lower power consumption, smaller footprints and greater integration, TMR sensors are gaining relevance.

 Translating this potential into monolithically integrated sensor layouts – from Wheatstone bridges to angle and multi-axis concepts – requires local definition of sensor sensitivity axes at wafer level. Selective laser-based reference-layer pinning provides this capability by combining a selective laser spot with a local magnetic field, allowing defined sensor areas to be pinned in the desired direction – with additional relevance for GMR sensors. 

microVEGA™ xMR is a production-proven platform used in 24/7 high-volume fabs worldwide. It combines localized thermal impact, recipe-based flexibility and on-the-fly processing for cost-efficient production of next-generation TMR/GMR sensor architectures.