High performance uncooled amorphous silicon VGA IRFPA with 17-µm pixel-pitch

Abstract

The high level of accumulated expertise by ULIS and CEA/LETI on uncooled microbolometers made from amorphous silicon enables ULIS to develop VGA IRFPA formats with 17μm pixel-pitch to build up the currently available product catalog. This detector keeps all the innovations developed on the 25 μm pixel-pitch ROIC (detector configuration by serial link, low power consumption and wide electrical dynamic range). The specific appeal of this unit lies in the high spatial resolution it provides. The reduction of the pixel-pitch turns this TEC-less VGA array into a product well adapted for high resolution and compact systems. In the last part of the paper, we will look more closely at the high electro-optical performances of this IRFPA and the rapid performance enhancement. We will insist on NETD trade-off with wide thermal dynamic range, as well as the high characteristics uniformity, achieved thanks to the mastering of the amorphous silicon technology coupled with the ROIC design. This technology node paves the way to high end products as well as low end compact smaller formats like 160 x 120 or smaller.