James Lee Gates

US Patent:

54895545, Feb 6, 1996

Filed:

Feb 4, 1994

Appl. No.:

8/192207

Inventors:

James L. Gates - Lake Oswego OR

Assignee:

Hughes Aircraft Company - Los Angeles CA

International Classification:

H01L 2118

US Classification:

437208

Abstract:

A 3-dimensional circuit assembly includes a lower substrate, a first integrated circuit (IC) layer that is adhered to and electrically insulated from the substrate, electrical contacts for the IC layer, and separate electrical contacts for the substrate that extend through and are insulated from the IC layer. The IC layer is surmounted by an insulating layer through which the electrical contacts also extend, and across which interconnections between different contacts may be made. The IC layer and substrate are held together by an adhesion layer, with the adhesion, IC and insulating layers all being thin enough to assume the coefficient of thermal expansion for the underlying substrate, which is much thicker. The substrate may itself have a second IC layer to which contacts are made, or it may be implemented as the photodetector of a focal plane array. Two standard wafers are used to form the package, with the substrate for the upper wafer removed either before or after bonding to the lower wafer.

US Patent:

55548490, Sep 10, 1996

Filed:

Jan 17, 1995

Appl. No.:

8/372982

Inventors:

James L. Gates - Lake Oswego OR

Assignee:

Flir Systems, Inc. - Portland OR

International Classification:

G01J 520

US Classification:

25037008

Abstract:

A micro-bolometric infrared (IR) staring array is described. The active element in each pixel within a two-dimensional array is a device having a selectively forward-biased p-n junction, e. g. a selectively biased diode. Each diode in the array serves as both an IR energy detecting element and a switching element. Each diode in a given row of the IR pixel array to be sensed, or read, is driven at a constant voltage, rendering its IR response highly controllable in the forward biased operating curve of the diodes in the addressed row. Diodes not being driven are, due to their reverse bias, in their off state producing minute leakage current and thus make no significant contribution to the sensed current representing a given pixel's IR exposure. The row-addressed driven or active diodes are sensed column by column by sample and hold techniques to produce a two-dimensional IR pixel image of a target. This simplifies the geometries as well as the cell structures while increasing the fill ratio to greater than approximately fifty percent.