Finite element modeling for temperature stabilization of gated Hall sensors

Using finite element analysis, we have calculated the Hall voltage of gated Hall sensors in the temperature range (-55 degrees C, 125 degrees C). We investigated how both the sensor shape and the external connections influence the Hall voltage and its thermal drift. The numerical results are in excellent agreement with the experimental measurements. By contrast, we checked that simplified analytical methods lead to a large numerical error, which is not acceptable in these sensors devoted to metrological applications. In particular, it is found that the thermal drift in the Hall voltage can be canceled for a current of the order of 300 mu A, a much higher value than that predicted by the corresponding analytical calculations. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.