Bandwidth enhancement in Hall probe by X-Hall DC biasing

The spinning-current technique is the state-of-the-art method for offset cancellation in Hall-effect probe. This technique achieves the best results in terms of offset reduction but limits the acquisition bandwidth to less than 1 MHz; therefore, it precludes the use of purely Hall-effect sensors in broadband current measurement. We present the X-Hall probe, a DC bias approach combined with an octagonal 8-contact morphology of the Hall-effect probe, which overcomes the bandwidth limitations of spinning-current-operated Hall sensors while reducing the offset. A prototype of the X-Hall probe is realized in CMOS-like technology and can potentially achieve a bandwidth wider than 40 MHz with an acceptable residual offset.