At the beginning of pressing action, the Hall-effect sensor continuously monitors the magnetic field and sends this to the MCU. Once the MCU detects that the magnetic flux difference between two or more samples is larger than the pre-set value, the MCU can set a flag to indicates that the Z-axis has already been pressed. This first level of pressing detection is achieved by the software.

The threshold of the software can be manually adjusted by the user to fit different systems. For example, different magnets in the joystick and different distances between the joystick and 3D Hall sensor can cause different amplitude responses in the 3D linear Hall sensor. The setting value can be defined by simulation or experimental results. Figure 3-2 shows the simplified software detection function.

Figure 3-2 Software Detection Method