Column-wise ROIC design for uncooled microbolometer array

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design of a columnwise readout integrated circuit (ROIC) along with thermal modeling of uncooled thermal sensor array. Two major noise sources, namely fixed pattern noise due to process variation and self-heating due to electrical biasing of microbolometer detectors, are addressed in this work. Fully differential approach is used at the input stage in order to reject the common mode noise during the pulse biasing and readout of the microbolometer detectors. A row of blind microbolometers is used as a reference for ROIC. The focal plane array consists of 127×92 uncooled microbolometer detectors. Resistance variability of ±10% is considered due to process variation.