INDEPENDENTLY PACKAGED BRIDGE TYPE MAGNETIC FIELD SENSOR

A magnetoresistive sensor bridge utilizing magnetic tunnel junctions is disclosed. The magnetoresistive sensor bridge is composed of one or more magnetic tunnel junction sensor chips to provide a half-bridge or full bridge sensor in a standard semiconductor package. The sensor chips may be arranged such that the pinned layers of the different chips are mutually antiparallel to each other in order to form a push-pull bridge structure. The sensor chips are then interconnected using wire bonding. The chips can be wire-bonded to various standard semiconductor leadframes and packaged in inexpensive standard semiconductor packages. The bridge design may be push-pull or referenced. In the referenced case, the on-chip reference resistors may be implemented without magnetic shielding.