- Realizing ease of use as a potentiometer replacement product

- Simple ratioometric output, high resolution, low power consumption, and excellent cost-effectiveness.

September 11, 2014 – ams (Country Manager Jong-Deok Lee), a specialist in high-performance analog ICs and sensors, announced the launch of its new magnetic rotary position sensor, the AS5600. The AS5600 features a non-contact design with improved reliability, making it easy to use in place of existing potentiometers.

The new AS5600 features a ratioometric output that reflects the output of a potentiometer, offering a more attractive alternative to existing potentiometer manufacturers and users. This means that existing potentiometer users do not need to modify the application code running on the microcontroller when switching to an AS5600-based design. The AS5600, which provides 12-bit precision resolution over a full rotation angle of 0° to 360°, includes a knob and a dial, allowing it to measure angular displacement in applications where potentiometers are currently used.

By using low-cost 2-pole magnets together with the AS5600, design engineers can implement an angle measurement system at a cost similar to that of a midrange potentiometer, thus enjoying excellent cost-effectiveness.

With the launch of the new AS5600 magnetic rotary position sensor, ams has further expanded its family of magnetic position sensors that incorporate all of its proprietary differential sensing technologies. This product offers high immunity to stray magnetic fields. The non-contact sensing method also provides superior reliability compared to the contact method of potentiometers. Unlike potentiometers, where a mechanical wiper slides along a conductive armature, magnetic position sensors detect rotational movement by measuring changes in the magnetic field created by the magnets used in conjunction.

Magnetic field sensing techniques are not affected by dust, humidity, moisture, or vibration. Factors such as dust, humidity, moisture, and vibration tend to distort or disable the measurement operation of the potentiometer.

The AS5600 provides superior performance and reliability compared to a potentiometer, while also introducing a new power saving mode that is competitive enough to rival the potentiometer's low power consumption. The new product implements a total of four types of power saving modes and automatically switches to the lowest power mode after being deactivated for one minute. In the lowest power mode, it scans for movement 10 times per second. When movement is detected, the product immediately switches to a user-selected power mode and operates at a higher sampling frequency. In the lowest power mode, the maximum power consumption of the AS5600 is only 1.5mA.

The high measurement accuracy of the AS5600 is due to the Hall elements embedded in the chip, which are a high-performance functional block found in all of ams's magnetic position sensors. Nonlinearity in the digital output is only ±0.28% during a full 360° rotation across the device's entire temperature range. The maximum noise is 0.015°rms.

Alfred Binder, General Manager of ams’ Position Sensor Business Line, stated, “Potentiometers are known to be susceptible to early failure in industrial and consumer applications due to contamination issues caused by dust or humidity. With the launch of the AS5600, potentiometers can now be easily replaced with a reliable non-contact method that offers high resolution, low power consumption, and excellent resistance to contamination.”