TY - JOUR A1 - Caetano, D. M. A1 - Rabuske, T. A1 - Fernandes, J. A1 - Pelkner, Matthias A1 - Fermon, C. A1 - Cardoso, S. A1 - Ribes, B. A1 - Franco, F. A1 - Paul, J. A1 - Piedade, M. A1 - Freitas, P. P. T1 - High-Resolution Nondestructive Test Probes Based on Magnetoresistive N2 - This paper discloses two high-sensitivity probes for Eddy Current Nondestructive Test (NDT) of buried and surface defects. These probes incorporate eight and 32 magnetoresistive sensors, respectively, which are optimized for high sensitivity and spatial resolution. The signal processing and interfacing are carried out by a full-custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The ASIC signal chain performs with a thermal input-referred noise of 30 nV/√Hz at 1 kHz, with 66 mW of power consumption, in a die with 3.7 × 3.4 mm 2 . NDT results are presented, showing that there is an increase in spatial resolution of surface defects when contrasted to prior art, enabling the probes to resolve defects with diameters of 0.44 mm, pitches of 0.6 mm, and minimum edge distance as low as 0.16 mm. The results also show that the probe for buried defects is a good all-round tool for detection of defects under cladding and multiple-plate flat junctions. KW - ASIC KW - Magnetoresistive sensor KW - Nondestructive testing KW - Eddy current testing KW - High resolution PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/TIE.2018.2879306 VL - 66 IS - 9 SP - 7326 EP - 7337 PB - IEEE AN - OPUS4-48239 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -