CMOS read-out IC with op-amp pixel amplifier for infrared focal plane arrays

The design and prototype of a read-out integrated circuit for an uncooled infrared focal plane array are described in this paper. The device is designed to interface to a pyroelectric infrared detector array of size 320×240. The read-out IC presented here achieves better performance and uniformity compared to existing approaches by implementing a single stage CMOS op-amp within each pixel of the detector array. The prototype devices exhibit fixed pattern noise less than 5 mv (0.5% of full scale) without correction. The pixel amplifier exhibits less than 0.6% maximum (0.5% average) relative gain error with less than 0.2% gain variation over the 1 V input range