Patent ID: 7372259

Claim:
A magnetometer transducer sampling front-end amplifier and processor comprising: a transducer having a transducer output, the transducer selected from the group consisting of passive transducers and active transducers; a passive low pass filter connected to the transducer output, the low pass filter including a filter output, the low pass filter producing a signal with a baseband bandwidth; an amplifier stage having a first input connected to the filter output, the amplifier stage also including a current source input and an amplifier output, the amplifier output having a frequency, the amplifier stage being current modulated; an output capacitor and discharge control having a first control input connected to the amplifier output, the output capacitor and discharge control further having a second control input and having a control output, the output capacitor and discharge control comprising a load capacitor, resistor, and switch, the load capacitor, resistor, and switch connected to the amplifier output; a voltage comparator connected to receive the control output, the voltage comparator including a reference voltage and having a comparator output; a duty cycle control logic block connected to receive the comparator output, the duty cycle control logic block having a duty cycle system clock input, a voltage comparator input connected to receive the voltage comparator output, and including a control logic output; a sampling clock and pulse width modulation (PWM) logic block having a first sampling clock input connected to receive the control logic output, and having a second sampling clock input, and having a sampling clock output; a gated current source having a current source input connected to receive the sampling clock output, the gated current source further having a low duty cycle, the gated current source further having a current source output, the current source output connected to the amplifier stage current source input, the gated current source providing the current modulation to the amplifier stage, the gated current source further having a Nyquist frequency and a sampling frequency, the Nyquist frequency being at least 50% of the sampling frequency; a system clock and decimators block having a first system clock output and a second system clock output connected to the duty cycle system clock input; and an interval counting detection processor connected to receive the first system clock output, and having a target detection output.