High-speed CMOS readout integrated circuit for small-pixel-size microbolometric focal plane array

Abstract

Abstract A novel kind of high-speed CMOS readout integrated circuit for large-scale microbolometric focal plane array is proposed in this paper. The proposed readout integrated circuit can directly amplify the voltage signals of all microbolometric pixels in focal plane array response to infrared irradiation and then output the amplified voltage signals column by column and row by row. Because there is no need of photo-generated current integration capacitor for microbolometric voltage response, the readout integrated circuit can save a lot of readout circuit area for small-pixel-size. In addition, the proposed CMOS readout integrated circuit can produce an output of the sensing voltage signals of microbolometer array at very high speed for which there is no integration time consumption when the microbolometric focal plane array operates.