Self- heating effects in CMOS-SOI-NEMS transistors for uncooled passive IR sensors

Novel uncooled thermal sensor based on a suspended transistor (TMOS) made in standard CMOS-SOI process and released by post-etching, has been developed at Technion. The transient Self-heating thermal effect analysis of TMOS sensors operated either in saturation or subthreshold is presented. This work establishes an analytical analysis of a novel approach drastically reducing the self-heating thermal effect in TMOS sensors. This is achieved by a bridge-like circuit and utilizing a sensor and a reference device with similar thermal capacitance and different thermal conductivity. The self-heating effect is significantly reduced while operating in subthreshold. Thus emphasizing the advantages of the subthreshold operation point: battery operation as well as reduced self-heating.