Allegro Expands Portfolio of Coreless Current Sensors for Electric Vehicles, Industrial and Other Applications

Allegro MicroSystems (NASDAQ: ALGM), a global leader in sensing technology and power semiconductor solutions for motion control and energy-efficient systems, today announced the launch of a new coreless Hall-effect current sensor, the ACS37610, which is ideal for demanding automotive and industrial systems, with higher accuracy and sensitivity, advanced fault detection capabilities, and user programmability. The new current sensor, the ACS37610, joins the ACS37612 as the industry's first family of true coreless Hall sensing solutions capable of measuring currents from 100A to over 4000A flowing through a busbar or PCB trace with a typical accuracy of 1% and without the need for external magnetic collectors or U-shaped magnetic shields. These innovative solutions enable system designers to increase efficiency and power density while reducing system complexity, BOM cost, footprint, and weight.

“For over 20 years, Allegro has been a leading innovator in current sensing solutions and pioneered coreless differential Hall-effect current sensing technology,” said Shaun Milano, Director of Current Sensors at Allegro. “Our new ACS37610 enables customers to accurately measure hundreds or thousands of amperes in a very cost-effective and simple way. Allegro’s Hall-effect-based differential sensors offer excellent immunity to stray fields without the shielding required by competing solutions, which slows response and increases nonlinearity errors in the system.”

New advanced features for demanding current sensing applications

The ACS37610 is the best choice for applications such as high-voltage traction motor inverters, 48V/12V auxiliary inverters, heterogeneous redundant battery monitoring, overcurrent detection, smart fuses, power distribution units (PDUs) and power supplies in electric vehicles. The ACS37610 has a 250kHz bandwidth, dedicated overcurrent and overtemperature fault pins, and full built-in diagnostics, making it ideal for safety-critical applications.

The ACS37610 uses advanced differential sensing technology to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by 2.5 times and reduce noise by 2 times compared to the ACS37612. The lower noise provides the high resolution required for precise torque control, while the ACS37610's 4x higher sensitivity range enables flexible bus and PCB design.

As an optional measure, a shallow trench design for the busbar or PCB copper traces can further improve the system’s signal-to-noise ratio. The ACS37610 has a larger 2.5mm Hall element pitch (1.8mm for the ACS37612), which allows for a wider shallow trench, resulting in a lower noise level.

Thermal degradation and hot spots are virtually nonexistent. The ACS37610 can be mounted in either horizontal or vertical orientation relative to the busbar, allowing for high flexibility in mechanical assembly.

Packaging and design support

The ACS37610 current sensor is now available in a thin, lead-free 8-pin surface mount TSSOP package. Its ultra-compact package is ideal for space-constrained applications while enabling simple, cost-effective surface mounting. To help developers accelerate their designs, Allegro also offers evaluation kits and reference tools for PCB or busbar current sensing.