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CHENGKUO LEE 1Dept. of Electrical and Computer Eng., National University of Singapore, Singapore 2 Institute of Microelectronics, A*STAR, Singapore E-mail: elelc@nus.edu.sg
Chengkuo Lee / 2007.12.9 MEMS Innovation FEST 2007_Chengkuo Lee 1
April 2004
Microbolometer
IR Detector Array
Thermometer
Non-contact Temp. Sensing 10x10 ~ 50x50 pixels, IR Small Sensor Array
Security & Human Information
MEMS Innovation FEST 2007_Chengkuo Lee 4
A thermopile is serially-interconnected array of thermocouples, each of which consists of two dissimilar materials with a large thermoelectric power and opposite polarities. The thermocouples are placed across the hot and cold regions of a structure and the hot junctions are thermally isolated from the cold junctions. The cold junctions are typically placed on the silicon substrate to provide effective heat sink. In the hot regions, there is a black body for absorbing an infrared, which raises the temperature according to the intensity of the incident infrared. These thermopile employ two different thermoelectric materials which are placed on a thin diaphragm having a low thermal conductance and capacitance. Since this creates a large temperature difference between the hot and cold regions, this structure enables improved detector performance. sp; The thermopile has some unique properties which cannot be duplicated by other detectors. It shows an inherently stable response to DC radiation and is not sensitive to ambient temperature variations. It responds to a broad infrared spectrum, does not require a source of bias voltage or current.
MEMS Innovation FEST 2007_Chengkuo Lee 7
*High thermoelectric coefficient *High absorption coefficient *Low thermal conductivity *Low volume resistivity
MEMS Innovation FEST 2007_Chengkuo Lee
Rv = Vout/Pin =n a-) / (Ks +Kgas +Krad) ( b Vn = (4kTR 1/2 f) NEP = Vn/Rv D* = (Aa 1/2/NEP f)
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1987, PM Sarro
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Tympanic Thermometer Spec. of Thermopile for Tympanic Thermometer Active area: 500um 500um Responsivity(Rv): 60 V/W Detectivity(D*): 1 8 cm 10 Hz/W Time constant: 30 ms
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IR Gas Sensor
IR SOURCE window cell pump
IR controller IR filter Amp IR detector cal.
Major Absorption Peaks in Solar Spectrum for Gases Solar Spectrum for Gases
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Miniature detector
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Infrared Radiation Physics Infrared Temperature Sensors - General Physics - Development of CMOS Based Thermopiles
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Design thermopile infrared sensor to obtain the desired Rv, D*, R Device parameters: length of thermopile legs, width of polysilicon, number of thermocouple, absorber area
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The thermopile materials used are the n-polysilicon and aluminum, and the process used is CMOS compatible process. After standard CMOS process we use front side Si bulk anisotropic wet etching to release the membrane device structure. TO-5 package with the Si filter
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Thermopile
TO-CAN Package and Sensor Layout
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Sheet resistance of polysilicon: 25ohm/ The Seebeck coefficient is set at 133 V/K calculated from the trend of experimental curve of former studies The heat conductance of aluminum, polysilicon , silicon oxide and silicon nitride are 238, 29, 1.25 and 15 W/K, respectively.
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Metal2 Absorber
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Compare the effect of IR radiation power and applied bias power to find design rules of thermopile
Measure the Rv by radiation from an IR light source
in vacuum
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16 Rv4 14 12 10
D*1= 1 108 cm D*2=0.9 108 cm D*3=0.8 108 cm D*4=0.7 108 cm D*5=0.6 108 cm
B
8 6 4 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Rv3
Rv2
Rv1 9 10
A: w=12 m, l=100 m, D*= 1.26 108(cm Hz/W), Rv= 49.0(V/W) B: w= 8 m, l=200 m, D*= 0.95 108(cm Hz/W), Rv= 64.0(V/W) C: w= 3 m, l=300 m, D*= 0.55 108(cm Hz/W), Rv= 74.5(V/W)
Thermopile
OP Amp
Infrared Radiation Physics Infrared Temperature Sensors - General Physics - Development of CMOS Based Thermopiles - CMOS Based 3-D Thermopile Structures
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CMOS Based 3-D Thermopile Structures Downsize to 1/4 chip area by using 3D structure
Radiation absorber Thermocouple material 1 Radiation absorber Thermocouple material 2 Thermocouple material 1 Thermocouple material 2
Closed membrane structure using back side etching Open membrane structure using front side bulk etching
Radiation absorber Thermocouple material 1
Thermopile leg
Thermocouple material 2
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Probability
Desired pixel number: fx=dtlp/ht; Focal plane size: 2 focal length tan (FOV/2) Pixel size = Focal plane size / pixel number
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CMOS Based 3-D Thermopile Structures Simulation of NETD of 3D thermoelectric structure for low cost security & human information application
2-level structure
S/N=6 MRTD=0.5 C
Target d
curve on figure shows optimized lowest NETD versus target The distance according to the default values of chip size and pixel number From this figure we derived that the 3D structure can be used for longer distance application than traditional 4-bridge structure
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Absorption layer deposition and patterning Si bulk micromachining
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Passivation layer deposition and pad patterning Sacrificial layer etching
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Previous Approaches
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CMOS Based 3-D Thermopile Structures SEM and OM photos of 3-D thermoelectric structures
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lb ls
Sample I Sample II Sample III Sample IV 2 2 180*180 300*300 500*500 2 500*500 2 m m m m 20 30 40 40 50 50 50 30 6 6 10 10 180 200 200 200 200 220 250 250 37.4 28.6 26.7 26.7 138 152 187 187
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Sample III
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Sample I Sample II Sample III 2 2 180*180 300*300 500*500 2 m m m Rv_Air (V/W) Rv_Vac (V/W)
37.4 138
28.6 152
26.7 187
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Results Highlight
1. Downsizing to 1/4 of original size for single detector. 2. 3D Thermoelectric structure is good than conventional design in the case of the same chip size. 3. Sample I shows Rv , D* and NETD of 51V/W, 0.5x10E8 cm Hz/W, and 0.047 in air, in vacuum.
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