High Sensitivity Micro-fabricated Fluxgate Sensor with a Racetrack Shaped Magnetic Core

We present a micro fluxgate magnetic sensor having solenoid coils and racetrack shaped magnetic core, which was designed to decrease the .operating power and magnetic flux leakage. Electroplated copper coils of $6\;{\mu}m$ thickness and the core of $3\;{\mu}m$ thickness were separated by benzocyclobutane (BCB) having a high insulation and good planarization characters. Permalloy $(Ni_{0.8}Fe_{0.2})$ as a magnetic core was also electroplated under 2000 gauss to induce the magnetic anisotropy. The core had the high DC effective permeability of $\~1,300$ and coercive field of $\~0.1$ Oe. The fabricated fluxgate sensor had the very small actual size of $3.0\times1.7\;mm^2$. The fluxgate sensor with a racetrack shaped core had the high sensitivity .of $\~350$ V/T at excitation condition of 3 $V_{P-P}$ and 2 MHz square wave. When two fluxgates were perpendicularly aligned in terrestrial field, their two-axis output signals were very useful to commercialize an electronic azimuth compass for the portable navigation system.