Current Sensor Sheds Size & Weight

At roughly half the size and weight of conventional Hall-effect current sensors, the NT Series current sensors promise to free up costly pc board real estate while shrinking product packaging. Instead of using a sensor core, the devices feature a coreless bus-bar conductor that decreases package thickness. Current passes through the bus bar and is sensed by a geometric network, which then measures absolute magnetic field strengths and field gradients.The sensors' size is highly advantageous in three-phase circuits: in the same space occupied by one closed-loop sensor, designers can now place three NT Series sensors. The units employ the firm's feedback technique that cancels out errors caused by temperature drifts, a problem inherent in Hall-effect sensor designs. In addition, the NT Series sensors are said to offer excellent high-linearity performance, low insertion loss, and a dc-to-50-kHz frequency range for fast short-circuit protection. They're also said to consume 33% less power than a comparable closed-loop, Hall-effect current sensor. AT THE SITE: full specifications and .pdf datasheets.