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Seiko is working on an infra-red video camera for consumer applications.
To avoid cryogenic cooling, the firm has gone for a thermal detector rather than sensing infra-red photons.
Each 167x167µm pixel has 88 pairs of n-poly/p-poly thermocouples with a coating to increase absorption.
To minimise cross talk and thermal loss to the substrate, the array is a perforated diaphragm micromachined away from the substrate, and pixels are only connected to neighbours by bridges.
Two versions exist, a 3.9x3.7mm 64pixel array for TO-5 packages, and a 256 element chip for TO-8 cans (see photo).
The sensitivity of the 8x8 chip is 146 to 195V/W, compared with 10-50V/W in existing designs, said Seiko.
With a silicon filtering lens and an amplifier gain of 200, the same pixels give 800µV/°C and a time constant under 2ms. Noise is ±0.4°C (1kHz sampling, eight sample average).
The firm claims the 64 pixel sensor can be made for 1/100th of the cost of thermal sensors based on microbolometers.