A Novel Test Structure for Testing of ROIC for 2D Bolometric IR FPA

Abstract

We propose a novel test structure and the technique for testing the readout integrated circuit (ROIC) without fabricating microbolometers on it. In general, each ROIC cell has two ends that are connected with a microbolometer. We propose to use two additional metal lines in row-column configuration in such a way that all the ROIC cells have one of their ends connected to a row metal line and other end to the column metal line. With this configuration, an M×N test array will have only M+N nodes and easy testability of all MN cells by simply wire bonding M row pads with the M microbolometers fabricated separately as M×1 linear array. Also, the non-uniformity within the row will represent the non-uniformity contributed only by the ROIC. Therefore, fixed pattern noise (FPN) in the ROIC alone may also be tested by this method.