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A CMOS Readout Circuit for Uncooled Micro-Bolometer Arrays  

오태환 (서강대학교 전자공학과)
조영재 (서강대학교 전자공학과)
박희원 (서강대학교 전자공학과)
이승훈 (서강대학교 전자공학과)
Publication Information
Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC / v.40, no.1, 2003 , pp. 19-29 More about this Journal
Abstract
This paper proposes a CMOS readout circuit for uncooled micro-bolometer arrays adopting a four-point step calibration technique. The proposed readout circuit employing an 11b analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a 7b digital-to-analog converter (DAC), and an automatic gain control circuit (AGC) extracts minute infrared (IR) signals from the large output signals of uncooled micro-bolometer arrays including DC bias currents, inter-pixel process variations, and self-heating effects. Die area and Power consumption of the ADC are minimized with merged-capacitor switching (MCS) technique adopted. The current mirror with high linearity is proposed at the output stage of the DAC to calibrate inter-pixel process variations and self-heating effects. The prototype is fabricated on a double-poly double-metal 1.2 um CMOS process and the measured power consumption is 110 ㎽ from a 4.5 V supply. The measured differential nonlinearity (DNL) and integrat nonlinearity (INL) of the 11b ADC show $\pm$0.9 LSB and $\pm$1.8 LSB, while the DNL and INL of the 7b DAC show $\pm$0.1 LSB and $\pm$0.1 LSB.
Keywords
bolometer; ADC; DAC;
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