The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 09, 2001
Filed:
Oct. 14, 1999
Chien-Chang Liu, San Jose, CA (US);
Carlos H. Mastrangelo, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
The Regents of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
Abstract
An uncooled infrared imager and associated microelectromechanical infrared detectors based on an active pixel heat balancing technique are disclosed. The imager is fabricated using a commercial CMOS process plus a simple electrochemical etch stop releasing step. The basic active pixel detector structure consists of a simple cascode CMOS amplifier in which the PMOS devices are built inside a thermally-isolated floating n-well. The intrinsic coupling of the cascode currents with the self-heating of the well forms an electrothermal feedback loop that tends to maintain the well temperature constant. By employing the heat balance between incoming infrared radiation and the PMOS device power dissipation, the responsivity of the detector is controlled by the cascode biasing current.