It would appear that Mikrosens are using CMOS polysilicon resistors as their microbolometer pixels.
Just found this Thesis abstract......
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Candidate:
Hande Öztürk
Area:
Electronics
Title:
Low-cost Microbolometer Infrared Detectors Utilizing Cmos Resistive Layers
Abstract:
This thesis summarizes the efforts to develop low-cost microbolometer type uncooled infrared detector architectures that utilize standard CMOS layers and components. In this thesis, various resistance structures of different CMOS technologies are investigated and possible resistors are determined as active material. In order to figure out potential microbolometer structure, all possible layers in the CMOS technologies are analyzed in terms of mechanical and thermal parameters. Mathematical modeling and computer simulations are realized. In order to obtain experimental data about the CMOS components, two different multi-project wafer CMOS chips are completed that contain various resistances and microbolometer structures. These designs are fabricated in the CMOS foundry and characterized in terms of electrical resistivity, temperature coefficient of resistance, thermal conductance, and noise. With the help of these experiences, the optimizedmicrobolometer architectures are employed in two different microbolometer infrared sensor focal plane arrays (FPAs). The developed and fabricated sensors are characterized in terms of the detector performance successfully. The outcome of this thesis can be summarized in three items. First of all, it is proven that the CMOS polysilicon layer can be used as the microbolometer active material with very low flicker noise and very high uniformity across the FPA. Secondly, the microbolometer architecture designed in the scope of this thesis formed the fundamentals of the CMOS Infrared (CIR) Technology concept which enables the fabrication of the infrared sensors in almost any CMOS/MEMS foundries in the world. Thirdly, by the Mikrosens engineering team, two different infrared sensors employing the developed microbolometer architectures in the scope of this thesis are realized. The final characterization results show that it is possible to achieve 150 mK NETD value with 35 µm pixel pitch and f/1 optics at 17 fps from 80x80 FPA."
Fraser