Enhanced performances of CMOS-MEMS thermopile infrared detectors using novel thin film stacks

Hou, Haigang; Huang, Qinghong; Liu, Guiwu; Qiao, Guanjun

doi:10.1016/j.infrared.2019.103058

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The amplifier was also added later to the sensor design. Numerous micromachined thermal flow sensors have been surveyed for different materials and applications including battery-free, wireless devices, nano mechanical sensor [171], infrared sensors [172][173][174][175][176], and calorimetric sensors [144,[177][178][179][180]. The high-quality CMOS foundry services provided by TSMC and UMC foundry were highly welcome over the past two decades.…”

Section: Cmos Mems Sensor Design Flowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foundry Service of CMOS MEMS Processes and the Case Study of the Flow Sensor

et al. 2022

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The complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process is the main stream to fabricate integrated circuits (ICs) in the semiconductor industry. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), when combined with CMOS electronics to form the CMOS MEMS process, have the merits of small features, low power consumption, on-chip circuitry, and high sensitivity to develop microsensors and micro actuators. Firstly, the authors review the educational CMOS MEMS foundry service provided by the Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute (TSRI) allied with the United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Taiwan’s foundry service of ICs is leading in the world. Secondly, the authors show the new flow sensor integrated with an instrumentation amplifier (IA) fabricated by the latest UMC 0.18 µm CMOS MEMS process as the case study. The new flow sensor adopted the self-heating resistive-thermal-detector (RTD) to sense the flow speed. This self-heating RTD half-bridge alone gives a normalized output sensitivity of 138 µV/V/(m/s)/mW only. After being integrated with an on-chip amplifier gain of 20 dB, the overall sensitivity of the flow sensor was measured and substantially improved to 1388 µV/V/(m/s)/mW for the flow speed range of 0–5 m/s. Finally, the advantages of the CMOS MEMS flow sensors are justified and discussed by the testing results.

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Section: Cmos Mems Sensor Design Flowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foundry Service of CMOS MEMS Processes and the Case Study of the Flow Sensor

et al. 2022

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“…The specific detection rate can express the detection capability of the thermopile device, which can usually be calculated by the equation [ 2 ]:

where

is the test bandwidth, generally taken as 1 Hz, and U n is the noise voltage of the IR sensor which can be calculated by the formula [ 4 ]:

…”

Section: Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

“…where ∆ f is the test bandwidth, generally taken as 1 Hz, and U n is the noise voltage of the IR sensor which can be calculated by the formula [4]:…”

Section: Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thermopile chips generally consist of a silicon window substrate, a suspension support layer, a thermocouple strip structure, and an absorption zone [ 3 ]. The thermopile is based on the Seebeck effect, which means that two different semiconductor materials are connected in series, and the two ends are in different temperature environments, and because the temperature difference cause the carriers in the semiconductor material to migrate, this generates a voltage [ 4 ]. The cold end of the thermocouple strip is located on the silicon window substrate, and the hot end is usually covered with a separate absorber layer, which is thermally isolated by etching to make the support film layer isolated from the silicon substrate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Design and Fabrication of a Low-Cost Thermopile Infrared Detector

et al. 2021

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In this paper, we design and optimize a low-cost, closed-film structure of a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) thermopile infrared detector. By optimizing the circular arrangement of thermocouple strips and the thermal isolation design of the cold end to pursue a higher temperature difference, in addition to eliminating the absorption region, silicon nitride is deposited on the whole device surface as a passivated absorption layer. This reduces the cost while maintaining the voltage response and is suitable for mass production. The optimized detector had a 22.6% improvement in the response rate to 34.2 V/W, a detection rate of 1.02 × 108 cm·Hz1/2/W, and a response time of 26.9 ms. The design optimization of this detector provides a reference for further development of IR detectors.

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“…Indeed, the efficiency of the device is improved as the absorption of radiation is made more efficient. 9 Several models exist to model the absorption via an interaction of a terahertz wave with the absorbing layer. 10,11 Sofiane Ben Mbarek, Fethi Choubani, and Bernard Cretin contributed equally to this work.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rigorous analysis of cross metallic absorber for terahertz detector

Mbarek

Choubani

Cretin

2021

Int J RF Mic Comp-Aid Eng

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We present a rigorous study of the reflection, transmission and absorption properties of cross metallic absorbers for terahertz broadband application. The quantitative analysis given in this study allows us to design terahertz absorbers for monolithic and multilayer terahertz detectors. The analytical modeling presented in this paper can be used as a modeling support to optimize the design of cross metallic absorbers. The presented theoretical models approach the reflection, transmission and absorption problem from different points-ofview yielding distinct sets of equations connecting the different parameters of the absorber. The results show the necessity to take into account all the dimensions of the absorbers to design the optimized structures. In fact, the results indicate that the optimum dielectric thickness to have the best absorption changes according to the geometry of the cross metallic absorber. A good agreement is shown among the analytical, finite element, and experimental results.

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Enhanced performances of CMOS-MEMS thermopile infrared detectors using novel thin film stacks

Cited by 17 publications

References 25 publications

Foundry Service of CMOS MEMS Processes and the Case Study of the Flow Sensor

Foundry Service of CMOS MEMS Processes and the Case Study of the Flow Sensor

Design and Fabrication of a Low-Cost Thermopile Infrared Detector

Rigorous analysis of cross metallic absorber for terahertz detector

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