• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.60 no.12
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• pp.2311-2317
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• 2011

In this paper, we study the temperature change of a ${\mu}$-bolometer focal plane array with a capacitive transimpedance amplifier bias cancellation circuit. Thermal analysis is essential to understand the performance of a ${\mu}$-bolometer focal plane array, and to improve the temperature stability of a focal plane array characteristics. In this study, the thermal analyses of a ${\mu}$-bolometer and its two reference detectors are carried out as a function of time. The analyses are done with the $30{\mu}m$ pitch $320{\times}240$ focal plane array operating of 60 Hz frame rate and having a columnwise readout. From the results, the temperature increase of a ${\mu}$-bolometer in FPA by an incident IR is estimated as $0.689^{\circ}C$, while the temperature increase by a pulsed bias as $7.1^{\circ}C$, which is about 10 times larger than by IR. The temperature increase of a reference detector by a train of bias pulses may be increased much higher than that of an active ${\mu}$-bolometer. The suppression of temperature increase in a reference bolometer can be done by increasing the thermal conductivity of the reference bolometer, in which the selection of thermal conductivity also determines the range of CTIA output voltage.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.196-200
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• 2007

In this paper, we propose and discuss the design using a simple method that reduces the fixed pattern noise(FPN) generated on the amorphous Si($\alpha-Si$) bolometer. This method is applicable to an IR image sensor. This method can also minimize the size of the reference resistor in the readout integrated circuit(ROIC) which processes the signal of an IR image sensor. By connecting four bolometer cells in parallel and averaging the resistances of the bolometer cells, the fixed pattern noise generated in the bolometer cell due to process variations is remarkably reduced. Moreover an $\alpha-Si$ bolometer cell, which is made by a MEMS process, has a large resistance value to guarantee an accurate resistance value. This makes the reference resistor be large. In the proposed cell structure, because the bolometer cells connected in parallel have a quarter of the original bolometer's resistance, a reference resistor, which is made by poly-Si in a CMOS process chip, is implemented to be the size of a quarter. We designed a ROIC with the proposed cell structure and implemented the circuit using a 0.35 um CMOS process.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.349-353
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• 2016

Recently, research on bolometer-type uncooled infrared image sensor which is made for industrial applications has been increasing. In general, it is difficult to calibrate fixed pattern noise (FPN) of bolometer array. In this paper, average-current calibration algorithm is presented for reducing bolometer resistance offset. A resistor which is produced by standard CMOS process, on the average, has a deviation. We compensate for deviation of each resistor using average-current calibration algorithm. The proposed algorithm has been implemented by a chip which is consisted of a bolometer pixel array, average current generators, current-to-voltage converters (IVCs), a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). These bolometer-resistor array and readout circuit were designed and manufactured by $0.35{\mu}m$ standard CMOS process.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.12
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• pp.1886-1891
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• 2012

In this paper, the analytical models for the electrothermal feedback of a ${\mu}$-bolometer focal plane array(FPA) are proposed and applied to the conceptually designed FPA to investigate the electrothermal feedback effect on bolometer FPA signal. The temperature and resistance change of the ${\mu}$-bolometer by the electrothermal feedback(ETF) model are increased upto 20 and 35.7 % of those of no feedback case, respectively, while those by the effective thermal conductance(ETC) model increased 8.5 and 15.1 %. The integration current and output voltage of a CTIA used as an column amplifier of FPA are also increased upto 41.6 and 32.4 % by the ETF model, while increased upto 17.2 and 13.5 % by the ETC model. The proposed models give more accurate temperature change, accordingly larger signal than no feedback considering case. Electrothermal feedback effect should be considered to design a high performance and high density ${\mu}$-bolometer FPA. The proposed models are very useful to investigate the transient thermal analysis, also considered to be useful to predict the responsivity and dynamic range of ${\mu}$-bolometer FPAs.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.264-269
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• 2015

An infrared (IR) bolometer measures the change of resistance by absorbing incident IR radiation and generates a signal as a function of the radiation intensity. Since a bolometer requires temperature stabilization and light filtering except for the infrared rays, it is essential for the device to be packaged meeting conditions that above mentioned. Minimization of heat loss is needed in order to stabilize temperature of bolometer. Heat loss by conduction or convection requires a medium, so the heat loss will be minimized if the medium is a vacuum. Therefore, vacuum packaging for bolometer is necessary. Another important element in bolometer packaging is germanium (Ge) window, which transmits IR radiation to heat the bolometer. To ensure a complete transmittance of IR light, anti-reflection (AR) coatings are deposited on both sides of the window. Although the transmittance of Ge window is high for IR rays, it is difficult to use frequently in low-price IR bolometer because of its high price. In this paper, we fabricated IR window by utilizing silicon (Si) substrate instead of Ge in order to reduce the cost of bolometer packaging. To enhance the IR transmittance through Si substrate, it is textured using Reactive Ion Etching (RIE). The texturing process of Si substrate is performed along with the change of experimental conditions such as gas ratio, pressure, etching time and RF power.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.89-92
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• 2010

A bolometer sensor used in an infrared thermal imaging system has many advantages on the process because it does not need a separate cooling system and its manufacturing is easy. However the sensitivity of the bolometer is low and the fixed pattern noise(FPN) is large, because the bolometer sensor is made by micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS). These problems can be fixed-by using the high performance readout integrated circuit(ROIC) with noise reduction techniques. In this paper, we propose differential delta sampling circuit to remove the mismatch noise of ROIC itself, the FPN of the bolometer. And for reduction of FPN noise, the reference signal compensation circuit which compensate the reference signal by using on-resistance of MOS transistor was proposed.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.450-455
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• 2010

The performance modeling of a $25{\mu}m$ pitch VGA ${\mu}$-bolometer with the self-aligned thermal resistor structure is carried out. The self-aligned thermal resistor can be utilized for the maximizing the thermal resistance and the fill factor of a bolometer, so the performance improvement can be expected. From the results of the performance modeling of the micro-bolometer with self-align thermal resistor for a $25{\mu}m$ pitch $640{\times}480$ microbolometer designed with $0.6{\mu}m$ minimum feature size, the drastic improvements of NETD from 38.7 mK to 19.1 mK, responsivity of 1.9 times are expected with a self aligned thermal resistor structure. The main reason for the performance improvements with a self-aligned thermal resistor structure comes from the increasement of the thermal resistance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.23-25
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• 2005

Infrared bolometer sensor's variation is detected by voltage drop between reference resistor and bolometer resistor in this architecture. One of the serious problems in this architecture is that these resistors value has a process variation. So common-mode level could be different from expectation in room temperature. Different common-mode level could lead to wrong output at the end of readout circuit. We suggest useful method to solve this problem. Difference correction using capacitor has reduced CM level difference to 86% for 1 $M\Omega$. bolometer and reference resistor's 10% variation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.361-361
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• 2007

A lot of efforts have been paid to develop infrared imaging systems in last decades. Bolometer has a wide range of applications from military to commercial, such as military night vision, medical imaging system and so on. Bolometer is a resistive sensor that detects temperature changes through resistance change. To improve detecting ability, bolometer should have a good resistive film which has high temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) value. Colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) $L_{1-x}A_xMnO_3$ (where L and A are trivalent rare-earth ions and divalent alkaline earth ions, respectively.) are received attention to apply bolometer resistive film because it has a high TCR property which was discovered in the metal to semiconductor phase transition temperature region. In this work, CMR films were deposited on various substrates in relative low substrate temperature by RF magnetron sputtering. The influence of deposition parameters such as substrate temperature, gas partial pressure, and so on have been studied. The structural and TCR properties of the films were also investigated for applying to microbolometer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.238-239
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• 2009

The amorphous silicon microbolometer array has been developed by the MEMS design and fabrication technology. Before the bolometer array for the image sensor being designed, the structure of unit cell and $16\times16$ array of it was simulated, designed and fabricated. The properties of bolometer have been measured as such that the TCR -3%/K.