Silicon foundry microbolometers: the route to the mass-market thermal imager

Paul A. Manning; John P. Gillham; N. J. Parkinson; Tej P. Kaushal

doi:10.1117/12.543495

30 August 2004 Silicon foundry microbolometers: the route to the mass-market thermal imager

Paul A. Manning, John P. Gillham, N. J. Parkinson, Tej P. Kaushal

Proceedings Volume 5406, Infrared Technology and Applications XXX; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.543495
Event: Defense and Security, 2004, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

The advent of uncooled thermal imaging has produced an order-of-magnitude reduction in the cost of thermal imaging compared to first-generation cooled systems. To reach a truly mass market, this process needs to be continued. One of the key cost constraints is the specialist nature of the sensitive material used in infrared detectors. This paper describes thermal imaging technology which can be entirely manufactured in a silicon IC foundry on a standard CMOS process. As a result the detector cost in volume production is extremely low. Careful optimisation of the other system components such as packaging, optics, and signal processing maintains this low-cost approach, giving a predicted production cost well below $100.

Citation Download Citation

Paul A. Manning, John P. Gillham, N. J. Parkinson, and Tej P. Kaushal "Silicon foundry microbolometers: the route to the mass-market thermal imager", Proc. SPIE 5406, Infrared Technology and Applications XXX, (30 August 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.543495

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