Patent ID: 8564282

Claim:
An angle sensor having a layered structure in which a plurality of magnetoresistive sensor units are stacked in a film thickness direction with interposed insulation films, wherein each sensor unit comprises: a self-pinned type ferromagnetic pinned layer in which a first ferromagnetic film and a second ferromagnetic film are anti-ferromagnetically coupled with an interposed anti-parallel coupling film; a nonmagnetic intermediate layer; and a soft magnetic free layer, wherein the first ferromagnetic film and the second ferromagnetic film have substantially the same Curie temperature and the difference in magnetization amount therebetween is substantially zero, magnetizations of the ferromagnetic pinned layers of the sensor units belonging to different layers are respectively oriented in different directions, a bridge circuit that outputs a signal corresponding to an external magnetic field is built by the plurality of sensor units, and induced anisotropy of the soft magnetic free layers of the sensor units is made isotropic.