A 533pW NEP 31×31 pixel THz image sensor based on in-pixel demodulation

Author

Boukhayma, A. ; Rostaing, J.-P. ; Mollard, A. ; Guellec, F. ; Benetti, M. ; Ducournau, Guillaume ; Lampin, Jean-Francois ; Dupret, A. ; Enz, Christian ; Tchagaspanian, M. ; Nicolas, J.-A.

Author_Institution

Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

fYear

2014

fDate

22-26 Sept. 2014

Firstpage

303

Lastpage

306

Abstract

A THz 31×31 pixel, 100 fps image sensor integrated in a 130 nm CMOS process is presented. Taking advantage of the possibility to modulate the active source that lights the scene, a significant improvement in sensitivity and NEP is achieved by shifting the modulated THz radiation, by means of an antenna/MOSFET, then filtering the signal band using an in-pixel 16-paths passive SC-filter combined with a CT Gm-C filter resulting in a high Q factor of 100. This THz imager features a measured NEP of 533 pW at 270 GHz and 732 pW at 600 GHz respectively, and a sensitive readout chain with an input referred noise of 0.2 μV_RMS.

Keywords

CMOS image sensors; MOSFET; demodulation; integrated circuit noise; millimetre wave antennas; millimetre wave detectors; millimetre wave field effect transistors; millimetre wave filters; millimetre wave imaging; millimetre wave integrated circuits; modulation; passive filters; submillimetre wave antennas; submillimetre wave detectors; submillimetre wave filters; submillimetre wave imaging; submillimetre wave integrated circuits; switched capacitor filters; terahertz wave detectors; terahertz wave imaging; CT Gm-C filter; NEP; THz image sensor; THz radiation modulation; active source modulation; antenna/MOSFET; frequency 270 GHz; frequency 600 GHz; in-pixel 16-paths passive SC-filter; in-pixel demodulation; power 533 pW; power 732 pW; signal band filtering; size 130 nm; voltage 0.2 muV; Band-pass filters; CMOS integrated circuits; Frequency modulation; Gain; Noise; Sensitivity; CMOS; Gm-C filter; N-paths filter; THz; camera; high selective filtering; image sensor; low noise;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

European Solid State Circuits Conference (ESSCIRC), ESSCIRC 2014 - 40th

Conference_Location

Venice Lido

ISSN

1930-8833

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-5694-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ESSCIRC.2014.6942082

Filename

6942082