Electronic – Are some integrated circuits magnetically sensitive

integrated-circuitmagnet

In general, are ICs magnetically sensitive? I have a bunch of logic gate ICs, driver ICs and Atmel Chips that I carry with me regularly. In addition I have small magnets that I use to pick up little components like resistors that are hard to get with your fingers. What other types of components might be magnetically sensitive?

Thanks!
Jarrod

Best Answer

Hall effect and magnetometer chips are. As are GMR (giant magnetoresistance) chips. And isolators using inductive coupling. And probably others that don't come to mind at the moment.

If you actually mean 'ferromagnetic', some have ferromagnetic leadframes and some don't. Probably there is some correlation with higher power density parts which may use a copper leadframe and are thus not very ferromagnetic. Many cheap leaded components use mild steel which is quite ferromagnetic.

Even if the part is largely not ferromagnetic there may be metals such as nickel used in small quantities (for example a thin nickel barrier layer under gold plating) that will cause a noticable effect if you have a strong enough magnet.