Uncooled infrared sensor with digital focal plane array for medical applications

Lockheed Martin IR Imaging Systems is developing low cost, high performance, uncooled infrared imaging products for both military and commercial applications. These products are based on the microbolometer technology, a silicon micromachined sensor which combines the wafer level silicon processing with a device structure capable of yielding excellent infrared imaging performance. Here, the authors report on the development of an uncooled sensor, the LTC5OO, which incorporates an all digital focal plane array and has a measured NETD of less than 70 mK. The focal plane array and the electronics within the LTC500 have been designed as an integrated unit to meet a broad range of end user applications by providing features such as nonuniformity correction, autogain and level, NTSC and PAL video, and digital outputs. The 327×245 element focal plane array has a 46.25 μm pixel pitch and an on focal plane array 14 bit to analog to digital converter (ADC). These features will make possible economical digital IR imagery for quantitative as well as qualitative medical applications