Current Sensor for Server Farm, Telecom, Auto Applications

Andover, Massachusetts - ACEINNA announced that their industry leading MCx1101 family of current sensors now supports 3.3 volt applications. These highly accurate, wide bandwidth AMR-based current sensors are now available for a wide range of ADC and microprocessor-based power systems and applications.

Units are now available for sampling and volume shipments.

The MCx1101 are fully integrated, bi-directional current sensors that offer much higher DC accuracy and dynamic range compared with alternative solutions. For example, the ±20A version has a typical accuracy of ±0.6% and are guaranteed to achieve an accuracy of ±2.0% (max) at 85°C. These new current sensors are in an industry standard SOIC-16 package with a low impedance (0.9 milli-ohm) current path and are certified by UL/IEC/EN for isolated applications.

These new current sensors also guarantee an offset of ±60mA, or ±0.3% of FSR (max) over temperature, which means that high accuracy can be achieved over a roughly 10:1 range of currents providing significant improvement in dynamic range vs. leading Hall-sensor-based devices.

These devices deliver a unique combination of high accuracy, 1.5MHz signal bandwidth with industry benchmark phase shift vs. frequency, fast output step response and 4.8kV isolation making them ideal for current sensing in fast current control loops and protection for high performance power supplies, inverters and motor control applications.

The fast response and high bandwidth of the MCx1101 is also ideal for fast switching SiC and GaN based power stages enabling power system designers to make use of the higher speeds and smaller components enabled by wide band-gap switches.  Output step response time is 0.3us. The MCx1101 also provides an integrated over current detection flag to help implement OCD (Over Current Detection) required in modern power systems. Over current detection response time is fast 0.2us.

The family includes ±50, ±20, and ±5A ranges, and is offered in both fixed gain (MCA1101) and ratiometric gain (MCR1101) versions.

All About AMR

AMR technology has significant advantages vs. other approaches such as Hall, CT (current transformer), and shunt resistors. Compared to Hall-based current sensors, AMR provides significantly higher bandwidth and dynamic range; Compared with CT’s, AMR offers reduced size and cost, as well as response to dc; in comparison with a shunt resistor, AMR provides a fully integrated solution, eliminating the external amplifier and related circuitry required for high voltage isolation, which is a significant challenge at high frequencies. In addition, shunt resistors require enough IR drop to achieve accuracy goals at the low end of the current range, which often means they are dissipating undesirable levels of power at nominal currents. By contrast, the AMR device only measures the magnetic field generated by the current, so the I²R losses can be minimized.

For additional technical details, the ACEINNA MCA1101 and MCR1101 Current Sensor data sheet is available at https://www.aceinna.com/current-sensors.