USOORE37146E

(19) United States (12) Reissued Patent

(10) Patent Number: US RE37,146 E (45) Date of Reissued Patent: Apr. 24, 2001

Cole et al. (54)

LOW POWER INFRARED SCENE

5,657,060

8/1997 Sekiya et al. . FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

AND METHOD OF

(75)

Inventors: Barrett E. Cole, Bloomington; Chien J

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2274943

8/1994 (GB) .

9326050

12/1993 (W0) .

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OTHER PUBLICATIONS

(73) Assignee: Hongywell International Inc”

D.R.Stauffer et al, article “Thermal Scene Pprojectors Using

Momstowm NJ (Us)

Microemitters”, Bellingham US Nov. 1991 vol. 30, No. 11, pp. 1664—1667.

(21) Appl- NO-I 09/239,304

G.H.Chapman et al, article “A Wafer Scale Dynamic Ther

.

mal Scene Generator”, International Conference on Wafer

(22) Flled'

Jan' 29’ 1999

Scale Integration, Jan. 22—24, 1992, San Francisco, CA.

Related U S Patent Documents

M. ParamesWaran et al, article “Commercial CMOS Fabri

Reissue of,

l '

cated Integrated Dynamic Thermal Scene Simulator”, Inter

(64) Pate'nt NO‘:

5,600,148

national Electsron ]5)evices Meeting, Dec. 8—11, 1991, Wash mgton’ W 7 34 6

Issued:

Feb. 4, 1997

Appl- N04

08/367,492

Filed:

Dec. 30 1994

(List continued on next page.)

’

7

..

Primary Examiner—Bruce C. Anderson

(51)

Int. Cl.

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(52)

US. Cl. ................ ..

(58)

Field of Search ........................... .. 250/4951, 504 R,

250/4531 ,

(56)

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(74) Attorney) Agent) Or Firm_JOhn G~ Shudy, Jr'

250/495.1; 250/504 R

(57)

ABSTRACT

An array for projecting thermal images and a method of making same. The array of the present invention combines

References Clted

a tWo-tier architecture created With special processing

[)3 PATENT DOCUMENTS

whereby each pixel member resides on an elevated platform directly over discrete pixel control electronics and electri

5/196; oberciy ' _ k

cally conducting traces couple a plurality of pixels so that

gi?inersllf'nn '

they can be controlled to project thermal images at equal to

4’639’603

1/1987 PiStOrg

4:654:622

3/1987 FOSS 6i aL _

y'

coupled to each discrete pixel improves the thermal ef?

or faster than video frame rates. Microlens assemblies

4,724,356

2/1988 Daehler _

c1ency of the array for certain applications. In the method of

4,859,080

8/1989 Titus er a1, _

fabrication, a semiconductor microbridge-type structure

4,922,116

5/1990 Grinberg et al. .

obtains With the use of sacri?cial layers under deposited

5,021,663

6/1991 Hofnbecl<~

pixel members in a compact array so that the pixel elec

5ao77a563

12/1991 Takeuchl ct a1~ -

tronics reside beneath their associated pixel and the array

g’159’48O 532L525

12/1992 69211091? a1‘ ' 5:’: 61131’ Jr‘ '

electronics inhabit the same chip as the array thereby improving ?ll factor and time constant of the resulting array.

5:300:7ss

4/1994 Fan et al. .

5,610,637

3/1997 Sekiya et al. .

26

24 Claims, 19 Drawing Sheets

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US RE37,146 E Page 2

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Article entitled “Dynamic Infrared Scene Projector for Mis

R.G.Driggers et al., article “Review of Infrared Scene Pro

sile Seeker Simulation” by W.S.Chan, J.S.Shie, C.H.Wang, V.K.Raman, Y.C.Chou, T.karunasiri and R.FrenZel; pp. 250—255 from Computer Simulation and SPIE, orlando, FL

jector Technology—1993”, from Optical engineering, vol. 33, No. 7, Jul. 1994, Bellingham, pp. 2408—2416. M.ParamesWaran et al., article “Micromachined Thermal Radiation Emitter From a Commercial CMOS Process”

from IEEE Electron Device Letters, Feb. 12, 1991, vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 57—59. B.E.Cole et al, article “512x512 Infrared Cryogenic Scene

Projector Arrays”, HoneyWell Technology Center, Feb. 7, 1995, pp. 193—202. B.W. Ludington, “Ultra—LoW—PoWer Scene Projector for

Targets Against Space Backgrounds,” in Characterization,

(1991). Article entitled “512><5 12 Infrared Scene Projector Array for

LoW Background Simulations” by B.E.Cole, C.J.Han, R.E.Higashi, J.Ridley, J .Holmen, J.Anderson, D.Nielsen, H.Marsh, K.NeWstrom and C.Zins, HoneyWell Technology Center; 10701 Lyndale Ave S. Bloomington, MN 55420—

1994 (Hilton Head Conference). Article entitled: Recent Progress in Large Dynamic Resistor Arrays by B.Cole, R.Higashi, J .Ridley, J .Holmen and

Article entitled “Electrically Heated PiXel (EHP) Arrays for Dynamic Infrared Scene Generation” by A.P.Pritchard and S.P.Lake; British Aerospace plc, SoWerby Research Centre (FPC 267); ?lton, Bristol, BS12 7QW UK; pp. 182—188

E.Benser; HoneyWell Technology Center, 12001 State High Way 55, Plymouth, MN 55441; R.Stockbridge and L.Mur rer; Wright Laboratory/MNGI, 101 West Eglin Blvd., STE 309, Elgin AFB, FL 32542; L.Jones; Science Applications International Corp., 1237—B North Elgin ParkWay, Shalimar, FL 32579 and E.burroughs; RTTC, STERT—TE—E—SA Bldg.

Propagation and Simulation of sources and Backgrounds III, Proc. SPIE 1967, 39—50 (1993).

from the SPIE vol. 940 Infrared Scene Simulation: Systems,

4500, Redstone Arsenal, AL 35898; pp. 1—13 from SPIE

Requirements, Calibration, Devices and Modeling (1988).

1997.

Article entitled: A High Fill Factor Suspended Resistor IR Scene Generator: Design, Fabrication and Preliminary Per

Article entitled: Dynamic IR Scene Generation: Basic

formance by A.P.Pritchard, M.C.Hebbron, S.P.Lake and

AP. Pritchard; SoWerby Research Centre, British Aerospace plc, FPC 267, Filton, Bristol BS12 7QW, UK; pp. 144—149

I.M.Sturland; British Aerospace plc SoWerby Reseaarch Centre, FPC 267 Filton Bristol BS12 7QW UK; pp. 15—26 from SPIE vol. 1967. Article entitled: “Infrared Scene Displays and Their Use in

Requirements and Comparative Display Device Design: by from SPIE vol. 940 Infrared Scene Simulation: Systems,

chard and S.P.Lake; SoWerby Research Centre, Naval Weap

Requirements, Calibration, Devices and Modeling (1988). Article entitled “HoneyWell Infrared Projector Technology” 1993, HoneyWell Inc.

ons Division, British Aerospace P.L.C., PO BOX 5, Filton, Bristol, Great Britain; pp. 153—158 from Infrared Phys. vol. 27, No. 3, 1987.

Article entitled: “High—performance 512><512 scene projec tor for targets against space backgrounds”, B.Cole, C.J.Han and R.Higashi, et al., SPIE 94.

Detector and Processor Assessment” by A.D.Hart, A.P.Prit

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