• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.299-312
• /
• 2006

This paper presents the results of a novel test structure for process control monitor for uncooled IR detector technology of microbolometer arrays. The proposed test structure is based on resistive network configuration. The theoretical model for resistance of this network has been developed using 'Compensation' and 'Superposition' network theorems. The theoretical results of proposed resistive network have been verified by wired hardware testing as well as using an actual 16x16 networked bolometer array. The proposed structure uses simple two-level metal process and is easy to integrate with standard CMOS process line. The proposed structure can imitate the performance of actual fabricated version of area array closely and it uses only 32 pins instead of 512 using conventional method for a $16{\times}16$ array. Further, it has been demonstrated that the defective or faulty elements can be identified vividly using extraction matrix, whose values are quite similar(within the error of 0.1%), which verifies the algorithm in small variation case(${\sim}1%$ variation). For example, an element, intentionally damaged electrically, has been shown to have the difference magnitude much higher than rest of the elements(1.45 a.u. as compared to ${\sim}$ 0.25 a.u. of others), confirming that it is defective. Further, for the devices having non-uniformity ${\leq}$ 10%, both the actual non-uniformity and faults are predicted well. Finally, using our analysis, we have been able to grade(pass or fail) 60 actual devices based on quantitative estimation of non-uniformity ranging from ＜ 5% to ＞ 20%. Additionally, we have been able to identify the number of bad elements ranging from 0 to ＞ 15 in above devices.

• 전자공학회논문지 IE
• /
• v.48 no.2
• /
• pp.32-39
• /
• 2011

The output image of the uncooled thermal infrared camera is difficult the identification of target because of the limited dynamic range and the various noises. Retinex algorithm based on the theory of the human visual perception is known to be effective contrast enhancement technique. However, the image quality is insufficient when it is adopted to the narrow dynamic range image as the infrared image. In this paper, we propose the revised retinex algorithm to enhance the contrast of the infrared image. To improve the contrast enhancement performance, we designed the new dynamic range compression function instead of log function. To reduce the noise and compensate the loss of edge, we added the contrast compensation procedure in the MSR image generation process. According to the output picture comparing and numerical analysis, the proposed algorithm shows the better contrast enhancement performance and the more suitable method for the infrared image enhancement.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.13 no.10
• /
• pp.859-864
• /
• 2000

Recently IR detecting devices using MEMS have been actively studied. Microbolometer, one of these devices, detects the change of resistivity as the change of temperature of the device by absorbing IR, IR absorbing materials for microbolometer should have high TCR value and low noise characteristics which depends on resistivity. We fabricated multi-layer VOx thin films to improve the IR detectivity of uncooled IR devices and analyzed IR absorbing characteristics. We fabricated multi-layer VOx thin films by RF reactive sputtering method on SiNx substrate and changed characteristics using the different thickness of V and V$_2$O$\_$5/ thin films. Then we annealed them under 300$\^{C}$. The TCR (Temperature Coefficient of Resistance) measurement was carried out to estimate the IR detectivity of multi-layer VOx thin films. XRD (X-Ray Diffraction) analysis was carried out to estimate the IR detectivity of multi-layer VOx thin films. ZXRD (X-Ray Diffraction) analysis was used to find out phases and structures of V and V$_2$O$\_$5/ thin films. AES (Auger Electron Spectroscopy) analysis was used to find out composition of multi-layer VOx thin films before and after annealing. We obtained the optimum thickness range of V and V$_2$O$\_$5/ thin films from the result of AES analysis. We changed the thickness of V$_2$O$\_$5/ about 20 to 150 $\AA$ and thickness of V about 10 to 20 $\AA$. As the result of this, TCR value of multi-layer VOx thin films was about -2%/k and the resistivity was ∼1Ωcm.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.60-66
• /
• 2015

Conjugate heat transfer analysis was performed to investigate the flow and cooling performance of the high pressure turbine nozzle of gas turbine engine. The CHT code was verified by comparison between CFD results and experimental results of C3X vane. The combination of k-${\omega}$ based SST turbulence model and transition model was used to solve the flow and thermal field of the fluid zone and the material property of CMSX-4 was applied to the solid zone. The turbine nozzle has two internal cooling channels and each channel has a complex cooling configurations, such as the film cooling, jet impingement, pedestal and rib turbulator. The parabolic temperature profile was given to the inlet condition of the nozzle to simulate the combustor exit condition. The flow characteristics were analyzed by comparing with uncooled nozzle vane. The Mach number around the vane increased due to the increase of coolant mass flow flowed in the main flow passage. The maximum cooling effectiveness (91 %) at the vane surface is located in the middle of pressure side which is effected by the film cooling and the rib turbulrator. The region of the minimum cooling effectiveness (44.8 %) was positioned at the leading edge. And the results show that the TBC layer increases the average cooling effectiveness up to 18 %.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.27 no.12
• /
• pp.809-814
• /
• 2014

Spinel thin films were prepared by the spin spray technique to develop new thermal imaging materials annealed at low temperature for uncooled microbolometer applications. The spinel thin films were deposited from $[(Ni_{0.30}Co_{0.33}Mn_{0.37})_{1-x}Cu_x]_3O_4$ ($0.1{\leq}x{\leq}0.2$) solutions and then annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ for 1 h in argon. Effects of Cu content (x) and deposition time on the electrical properties of the annealed films were investigated. With increasing deposition time, the resistivity of the annealed films increased. For the annealed films deposited for 1 min, the resistivity of x=0.15 films was lower than that of x=0.1 films due to the different grain sizes. The high temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of the annealed films could be obtained at temperature below $50^{\circ}C$. Typically, the resistivity of $127{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and TCR of -5.69%/K at $30^{\circ}C$ were obtained for x=0.1 films with deposition time of 1 min annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ for 1 h in argon.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
• /
• v.52 no.11
• /
• pp.36-43
• /
• 2015

A pixel-level readout circuit is studied for 2-dimensional microbolometer focal plane arrays (FPAs). A current mirroring injection (CMI) input circuit with 2-step current-mode bias suppression is proposed for a pixel-level architecture with high responsivity and long integration time. The proposed circuit has been designed using a $0.35-{\mu}m$ 2-poly 4-metal CMOS process for a $320{\times}240$ microbolometer array with a pixel size of $50{\mu}m{\times}50{\mu}m$. The proposed 2-step bias-current suppression has sufficiently low calibration error with wide calibration range, and the calibration range and error can be easily optimized by controlling some design parameters. Due to high responsivity and a long integration time of more than 1 ms, the noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) of the proposed circuit can be improved to 26 mK, which is much better than that of the conventional circuits, 67 mK.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.34 no.3
• /
• pp.106-116
• /
• 2023

In this paper, we designed a coaxial dual camera incorporating two optical systems-one for the visible rays and the other for far-infrared ones-with the aim of capturing images in both wavelength ranges. The far-infrared system, which uses an uncooled detector, has a sensor array of 640×480 pixels. The visible ray system has 1,945×1,097 pixels. The coaxial dual optical system was designed using a hot mirror beam splitter to minimize heat transfer caused by infrared rays in the visible ray optical system. The optimization process revealed that the final version of the dual camera system reached more than 90% of the fusion performance between two separate images from dual systems. Multiple rigorous testing processes confirmed that the coaxial dual camera we designed demonstrates meaningful design efficiency and improved image conformity degree compared to existing dual cameras.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
• /
• v.51 no.10
• /
• pp.80-86
• /
• 2014

A low-noise readout circuit is studied for 2-D capacitive microbolometer focal plane arrays (FPAs). In spite of the merits of the integration method, a simple and effective pixelwise readout circuit without integration is used for input circuit because of a small pixel size and narrow noise bandwidth. To reduce the power consumption and the kT/C noise, which is the dominant noise of the capacitive microbolometer FPAs with small capacitance, a new correlated double sampling (CDS) is used for columnwise circuit. The proposed circuit has been designed using a $0.35-{\mu}m$ 2-poly 4-metal CMOS process for a microbolometer array with a pixel size of $50{\mu}m{\times}50{\mu}m$. The proposed circuit effectively reduces the kT/C noise and the other low-frequency noise of microbolometer, and the noise characteristics of the fabricated chip have been verified by measurements. The rms noise voltage of the proposed circuit is reduced from 30 % to 55 % compared to that of the simple readout input circuit, and the noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) of the proposed circuit is very low value of 21.5 mK.