In this paper, a 128x128, 34μm pixel-pitch, room temperature infrared image sensor and processor is presented. With a measured power consumption of 8.9mW (540μW / pixel) in full operating mode (image acquisition and data processing), the sensor exhibit a Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD) of 190mK at room temperature and doesn't require a Thermo-Electric Cooler (TEC). The circuit also features a novel ∑Δ Analogue to Digital Conversion architecture, 12 frames of Built-in SRAM and 128 column-wise full-custom processors that target a broad range of applications such as 2-points corrected IR camera or feature extraction for privacy-compliant presence detection, localization and counting. Built-in analogue and digital pixel-level offset pre-correction improves operability and manufacturing yields thus pushing bolometers IR technology one step forward towards high-end applications for consumer market.
Laurent Alacoque, Sébastien Martin, Wilfried Rabaud, Edith Beigné, Antoine Dupret, Bertrand Dupont, "A 128x128, 34μm pitch, 8.9mW, 190mK NETD, TECless Uncooled IR bolometer image sensor with column-wise processing" in Proc. IS&T Int’l. Symp. on Electronic Imaging: Image Sensors and Imaging Systems, 2017, pp 68 - 73, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2470-1173.2017.11.IMSE-188