Patent ID: 7646196

Claim:
A current sensor disposed in a vicinity of a conductor which generates an induced magnetic field by a current to be detected which is supplied to the conductor, and detecting the current to be detected, the current sensor comprising a first magnetoresistive element and a second magnetoresistive element, each of the first and the second magnetoresistive elements having a stacked structure including: a pinned layer whose magnetization direction is pinned in a predetermined direction; a nonmagnetic intermediate layer; and a free layer whose magnetization direction changes according to the induced magnetic field, the free layer exhibiting an anisotropic field in a direction different from the magnetization direction of the pinned layer, wherein the first and the second magnetoresistive elements are configured so that the stacked structures in the first and the second magnetoresistive elements are in a same layer level, and a resistance value of the first magnetoresistive element and the resistance value of the second magnetoresistive element change in directions opposite to each other according to the induced magnetic field.