High-performance uncooled amorphous silicon VGA and XGA IRFPA with 17μm pixel-pitch

The high level of accumulated expertise by ULIS and CEA/LETI on uncooled microbolometers made from amorphous silicon with 45μm, 35μm and 25μm, enables ULIS to develop VGA and XGA IRFPA formats with 17μm pixel-pitch to fulfill every applications. These detector keeps all the recent innovations developed on the 25μm pixel-pitch ROIC (detector configuration by serial link, low power consumption and wide electrical dynamic range). The specific appeal of these units lies in the high spatial resolution it provides while keeping the small thermal time constant. The reduction of the pixel-pitch turns the TEC-less VGA array into a product well adapted for high resolution and compact systems and the XGA a product well adapted for high resolution imaging systems. High electro-optical performances have been demonstrated with NETD < 50mK. We insist on NETD and wide thermal dynamic range trade-off, and on the high characteristics uniformity, achieved thanks to the mastering of the amorphous silicon technology as well as the ROIC design. This technology node paves the way to high end products as well as low end compact smaller formats like 320 x 240 and 160 x 120 or smaller.