austriamicrosystems AS5013 magnetic encoder

austriamicrosystems has announced the AS5013, a contactless magnetic encoder IC that monitors the displacement of a magnet incorporated in a knob relative to its centre position and provides x and y position information via an I²C interface.

The Hall-sensor IC is used in the EasyPoint module, which consists of a mechanical stack incorporating a navigation knob, a magnet and the magnetic encoder IC. Its simple construction and contactless sensing technology give the module high reliability and is designed for any kind of 360° navigation input device.

The device is a complete Hall-sensor IC for human-machine interface applications requiring low power. The single-chip IC includes user-selectable power-saving modes, five integrated Hall sensing elements for detecting up to ±2 mm lateral displacement, a high-resolution analog-to-digital converter, an XY coordinate and motion detection engine and a smart power management controller.

The XY coordinate registers and magnetic field information for each Hall-sensor element is transmitted over the I²C interface to the host processor.

Two interrupt modes are provided - motion detect and data ready, and two operating modes - idle, with less than 3 µA current consumption and low, with selectable readout rate. The low-power device operates over a power supply range of 2.7 to 3.6 V and down to a 1.7 V peripheral supply voltage.

Specified over an operating temperature of -20 to +80°C, the AS5013 Hall-sensor IC operates from a 3.3 V power supply and is offered in a 16-pin 4 x 4 x 0.55 mm QFN package. The EasyPoint module is available in sizes as small as 8 x 8 x 1.5 mm.