Stmicroelectronics S.r.l.

Mattia Fausto Moretti

Paolo Pulici

Alessio Facen

Fabrizio Martignoni

Alberto Gussoni

Ambrogio Bogani

Valerio Lo Muzzo

Michele Bartolini

Dario Livornesi

Roberto Faravelli

Francesco Piscitelli

Alessio Emanuele Vergani

According to an embodiment, a circuit includes a core and low-frequency recovery circuits. The core circuit is configured to bias a resistive sensor used to measure a fly height of a hard disk drive. The core circuit is additionally configured to amplify a high-frequency component of a sensing signal of the resistive sensor, the sensing signal indicating the fly height. The low-frequency recovery circuit is configured to amplify the sensing signal's low-frequency component.

Circuit for biasing an external resistive sensor

A circuit arrangement, including: a circuit configured to synthesize a resistor having a resistance value having a variation in time equivalent to a resistance variation of a sensor resistor applied with a resistance bias voltage and a resistance current bias, wherein the circuit includes: an amplifier comprising an input transistor; a bias current generator comprising a control node coupled to an output of the input transistor, wherein the bias current generator is configured to generate a bias current flowing in the input transistor; and a further current generator configured to generate a current at least proportional to the resistance bias current and coupled to the output of the input transistor, wherein the resistance bias voltage is applied to an input of the amplifier, and wherein a transconductance of the input transistor is at least proportional to the resistance of the sensor resistor.

Low noise amplifier circuit for a thermal varying resistance

A current monitoring circuit includes: an output terminal configured to be coupled to a controller; an inverter having an output coupled to the output terminal; a first transconductance amplifier having first and second inputs configured to be coupled across a sense resistive element, and an output coupled to an input of the inverter; and a current generator having a second transconductance amplifier configured to generate a reference current at an output of the current generator based on a reference voltage, the output of the current generator being coupled to the input of the inverter, where the output of the inverter is configured to be in a first state when a load current flowing through the sense resistive element is higher than a predetermined threshold, and in a second state when the load current is lower than the predetermined threshold, and where the predetermined threshold is based on the reference current.

High-speed AFE for current monitoring applications

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Monza, Italy

Mattia Fausto Moretti