NOVEL HIGH THERMAL RESISTANCE STRUCTURE DESIGN FOR RESPONSIVITY AND DETECTIVITY ENHANCEMENTS OF CMOS MEMS THERMOELECTRIC INFRARED SENSOR

This study presents a novel sensing structure design with high thermal-resistance to enhance the responsivity of thermoelectric (TE) infrared (IR) sensor. Based on the TSMC 0.18 mu m standard CMOS platform, the TE IR sensor was designed and implemented. Merits of the proposed design are: (1) thin and slender connecting beams are designed to increase thermal-resistance to enhance sensing signals without changing thermal- noise (Fig.1-2), (2) CMOS layers and processes are developed to realize such suspended thin-slender connecting beams (Fig.3). Measurement results demonstrate the proposed design significantly improved both responsivity and detectivity for 146% (Detectivity = responsivity / thermal-noise, where thermal-noise is the same for reference and proposed designs).