A magnetic sensing method and apparatus include a plurality of bridge circuits, wherein each bridge circuit or element within a bridge is formed on a separate permalloy layer comprising a plurality of permalloy bridge runners. The permalloy bridge runners can be selected such that each permalloy bridge runner possesses a selectable wafer anisotropy to a length of the permalloy bridge runner in order to form a magnetic sensor based on the bridge circuits, maximize the magnetic sensitivity of the magnetic sensor, maximize the matching between bridges and independently control the wafer anisotropy through the use of multiple bridge circuits configured on separate permalloy layers.