Appeal No. 2006-1049
Application No. 09/667,826
24. Referring first to FIG. 3A an individual readout cell 100 is illustrated
incorporating therein a microbolometer detector element 200. A microbolometer
detector is simply a temperature sensitive resistor which changes its resistance in
relation to the IR energy illuminating the detector, which IR energy raises or
lowers the temperature of the detector (col. 11, lines 29-35).
25. Sensing the detector resistance (illustrated in FIG. 3A by RD) across
microbolometer 200, allows the incident IR energy on the detector element to be
detected. This change in resistivity must be sensed by some signal, which in turn,
requires biasing the detector 200 so as to get an output signal which varies with the
resistance of RD (col. 11, lines 35-41).
26. More specifically, referring to FIG. 3A, the readout cell circuitry
includes a constant current source 202 which provides the bias current Ibias
(col. 12, lines 22-24).
27. Although the constant current source 202 is shown as coupled directly
to the positive voltage source V+ in FIG. 3A, as better illustrated in FIG. 2, the
readout cell is coupled to the voltage source via a column select switch 110 which
will only be activated when readout of the particular column in which the readout
cell 100 resides is desired (col. 12, lines 27-32).
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Last modified: November 3, 2007