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Low Power Pixel-level ADC for a Micro-bolometer
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- Authors
- Dong-Heon Ha, Chi Ho Hwang, Sang Hoon Cheon, Yong Soo Lee, Hee Chul Lee
- Issue Date
- 2008-07
- Citation
- Asia-pacific Workshop on Fundamentals and Applications of Advanced Semiconductor Devices (AWAD) 2008, pp.1-4
- Language
- English
- Type
- Conference Paper
- Abstract
- A new ROIC (readout circuit) employing current skimming for application in a micro-bolometer array is presented. The proposed circuit lowers the power consumption for a pixel-level ADC (analog to digital converter). The IR current of a micro-bolometer is proportional to resistivity changes of the micro-bolometer. Thus, the required number of counter operations for the ADC can be determined according to the micro-bolometer current variation. The counting number precisely determines how much infrared flux is absorbed. For this performance, normally a 14 bit counter is used. By adopting the proposed current skimming scheme, however, the total bits for the counter can be reduced to 12 bits. This is because DC offsets caused by the device non-uniformity generated from the ROIC fabrication process can be reduced by the current skimming. Therefore, only a 12 bit counter is required for a pixel-level ADC. Due to the proposed mechanism, the overall power consumption in the counter will be reduced by up to 1/4 compared to the conventional structure. This low power approach is expected to see wide application in pixel level ADCs for micro-bolometers.
- KSP Keywords
- 12 bits, Analog to digital converter(ADC), Current variation, DC-offset, Low-Power, Micro-bolometer, Non-uniformity, Pixel-level ADC, Power Consumption, conventional structure, fabrication process