Fabrication Advancements in Integrated Fluxgate Sensors: A Mini Review

Abstract

Research on fluxgate magnetic sensors (FMS) has been in progress for past decades and has become popular for high precision results, external magnetic field detection, and simple design structure. The basic fluxgate magnetic sensor structure consists of an excitation coil, and pickup coils twist around the soft magnetic material. Although sensor size is simple, researchers, and engineers have been looking for decades to take advantage and integrate these devices into the tiny circuitry. This review will discuss the classic and new-related fluxgate sensor design structures. Moreover, this review presents the main existing of the conventional/ micro/PCB (Printed circuit board) devices, materials and elements used for the fabrication, analytical models, and simulation tools. Future challenges in the fluxgate sensor fabrication are analyzed critically, and alternative approaches for better design are presented. The review emphasizes the benefits of fluxgate sensors in terms of translation. The particular segment includes a comparison of micro technology design against printed circuit board design. Improvements in fluxgate sensor noise, sensitivity concerning design parameters are reviewed and summarized chronologically. Compared with the previous studies published several decades ago, it will help beginners learn the step-by-step fabrication stages of fluxgate sensors for advanced applications and also complete overview about fabrication advancements of fluxgate sensors.