Abstract:
The present invention provides a fingerprint sensing mechanism using a two-dimensional thermoelectric sensor array to capture the thermal image related to the ridges and valleys on the finger, wherein its fabricating method is totally compatible with integrated circuits processing. Using the body temperature of a human being as the stimulation source for biometrics, a temperature difference is produced from a ridge of a fingerprint contacting the thermoelectric sensor and the temperature gradient is converted into an electrical signal. A plurality of thermoelectric sensors arranged in a two-dimensional array forms a fingerprint sensor so as to obtain the electrical signal output of the ridge profile of the fingerprint.

Description:
[0001]    The present invention is partially related to U.S. Pat. No. 6,300,554 B1 entitled “METHOD OF FABRICATING THERMOELECTRIC SENSOR AND THERMOELECTRIC SENSOR DEVICE” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,335,478 B1 entitled “THERMOPILE INFRARED SENSOR, THERMOPILE INFRARED SENSOR ARRAY, AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING THE SAME”. 
     
    
     
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0002]    1. Field of the Invention  
           [0003]    The present invention generally relates to a fingerprint sensing method, and more particularly, relates to a thermal imaging method of fingerprint using thermoelectric sensor and its IC compatible fabrication  
           [0004]    2. Description of the Prior Art  
           [0005]    Early methods of fingerprinting utilized ink to transfer the fingerprint onto paper for checking directly or optically scanning the fingerprint into a computer to compare with a stored database for personal verification or authentication. The major problem with these methods is that they cannot provide a real-time solution to satisfy the increasing demands of such applications as internet security, electronic transactions, handheld electronic device security, personal ID, etc.  
           [0006]    For this reason, some real-time fingerprint sensing methods were introduced in the past including optical-types as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,228 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,340,300; chip-type fingerprint sensors including pressure induced piezoelectric effect or electrically contacting as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,394,773, U.S. Pat. No. 5,503,029, U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,662, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,287; capacitance sensing as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,620; and finally temperature sensing as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,464.  
           [0007]    Because of the size of the optics module, the optical type is not suitable for handheld electronic products, such as notebook computers or cellular phones.  
           [0008]    The major advantage of the chip-type fingerprint sensor is its small size so that can potentially be embedded into any electronics system. However, the chip-type fingerprint sensor of the prior art has some drawbacks including high power consumption (electrically contacting and temperature sensing ones), non-IC process compatible (piezoelectric and temperature sensing ones), dry or wet finger interference (capacitance), and ESD damage (capacitance).  
           [0009]    For these reasons, the present invention provides a chip-type fingerprint sensor with low power consumption, IC process compatible, minor wet or dry finger interference and ESD damage resistance.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0010]    An object of the invention is to provide a fingerprint sensing mechanism using two-dimensional thermoelectric sensor arrays to capture the thermal image related to the ridges and valleys on the finger, wherein its fabricating method is totally compatible with integrated circuit processes. Using the body temperature of a human being as the stimulation source for biometrics, a temperature difference is produced from a ridge of a fingerprint contacting the thermoelectric sensor and the temperature gradient is converted into an electrical signal.  
           [0011]    An embodiment of the present invention provides a thermoelectric sensor structure, wherein said sensor structure comprises a silicon substrate; a field oxide layer or a trench isolation layer on said silicon substrate acting as a thermal-isolation structure; at least a thermocouple serially connected to form a thermopile, wherein a hot-junction region of the thermopile is located at a central portion of the field oxide layer and a cold-junction region is located on a thin oxide layer which is surrounding the field oxide layer; and a heat pipe structure comprising at least an interconnection layer and at least a via hole metal, wherein the heat pipe structure is located between the central portion of the field oxide layer and a passivation layer, which is on the surface of the substrate.  
           [0012]    Another embodiment of the present invention provides a fingerprint sensor which comprises a plurality of thermoelectric sensors arranged in a two-dimensional array and integrates its signal processing circuitry on a single chip, which utilizes body temperature as a sensing mechanism for personal verification or authentication. When the finger ridge contacts the sensor, a temperature gradient is generated from the hot-junction region of the thermoelectric sensor to the cold-junction region, wherein the thermoelectric sensor converts the temperature gradient into a voltage signal. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0013]    The foregoing aspects and many of the accompanying advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:  
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 1 is a drawing illustrating a thermoelectric sensor array for fingerprint scanning, according to an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 2 is a schematic representation of the sensing principle using thermoelectric effect based on temperature gradient according to an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 3 is a schematic representation of a cross-sectional view of a single thermoelectric sensor, according to an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 4 is a drawing illustrating various temperature contours resulting from the contacting of a finger ridge with the thermoelectric sensor according to an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B are drawings illustrating response representations with the temperature difference and the time at different surrounding temperatures (30° C. and 40° C.), according to an embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 6 is a schematic representation of a cross-sectional view of a thermoelectric sensor, according to an embodiment of the present invention; and  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 7 is a drawing illustrating stabilizing the chip temperature of the fingerprint sensor, according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
     DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0021]    Refer to FIG. 1, which is a schematic representation of a fingerprint sensor  1  based on a thermoelectric sensor array according to an embodiment of the present invention, wherein the sensor chip  1  is used to read the ridge pattern of a fingerprint and comprises a plurality of thermoelectric sensors  10  arranged in a two-dimensional (2-D) array. When the finger contacts the sensor chip  1 , the ridge pattern  20  will contact with a portion of sensor devices  10  and have a heat transfer between each other to form a thermal pattern onto the chip  1 . Thermoelectric effect will convert this heat to an electrical signal to realize the original fingerprint ridge distribution.  
         [0022]    Referring to FIG. 2, which is a schematic representation of the sensing principle using thermoelectric effect based on temperature gradient according to an embodiment of the present invention. Each of the sensors  10  is fabricated using commercially available IC processing, especially the CMOS process. The basic structure of the sensor  10  comprises a silicon substrate  100 ; a field oxide layer (LOCOS)  101  used as a heat isolation layer; a thermopile formed by connecting at least a thermocouple  102  in series, wherein the hot-junction region  200  of the thermopile is located at a central portion of the field oxide layer  101  and a cold-junction region  300  of the thermopile is located on a thin oxide layer (not shown) surrounding the field oxide layer  101 ; and a heat pipe structure  400  comprising at least an interconnect layer and at least a via hole metal, wherein the heat pipe  400  structure is located between the central portion of the field oxide layer  101  and a passivation layer  106 .  
         [0023]    A fingerprint comprises ridge  20  and valley  21 . When the ridge  20  of fingerprint makes contact with the sensor  10 , heat (indicated by the arrow symbol) transferred between the ridge  20  of fingerprint and the sensor via the solid heat conduction mechanism. Wherein, most of the heat energy is transferred through the path of the heat pipe and then from the hot-junction to the cold-junction of the thermopile so as to produce a temperature difference ΔT between the hot-junction region  200  and the cold-junction region  300 . The thermoelectric sensor  10  utilizes the temperature difference ΔT to induce a voltage signal to discriminate if the sensor  10  is in contact with a ridge or not. The voltage generated from the sensor  10  can be shown as the following formula (1):  
           V=NαΔT   (1)  
         [0024]    Wherein N is the number of thermocouples in series and α is the Seeback coefficient (V/° C.) of a single thermocouple.  
         [0025]    In order to illustrate the detailed structure of the sensor  10  in FIG. 2, refer to FIG. 3, which is a schematic representation of a cross-sectional view of a single thermoelectric sensor  10  according to an embodiment of the present invention. The sensor  10  is formed using commercially available CMOS processing with a single polysilicon layer and two metal layers (1P2M). Since CMOS processing is a well-developed skill and technology, the detailed process flow is not redundantly describe herein and the structure design and the material characteristic of the sensor  10  will be illustrated in the following.  
         [0026]    First, a heat isolation structure  101  is defined on the silicon substrate  100 , wherein the heat isolation structure  101  is defined by utilizing the field oxide layer that is formed using Local Oxidation of Silicon (LOCOS) processing. The portion surrounding the heat isolation structure  101  is defined as the thin oxide layer  101   a , which is the gate oxide layer. The thermocouple  102  is composed of a first thermocouple material  102   a  and a second thermocouple material  102  b, wherein the first thermocouple material  102   a  comprises polysilicon material and the second thermocouple material is the first metal interconnection (Metal#1), which is, for example, of aluminum or aluminum alloy. The first thermocouple material  102   a  and the second thermocouple material  102   b  are connected by the via hole metal  103   a , which is, for example, tungsten (W). The sensor  10  also comprises an inter-layer dielectric (ILD)  103 , an inter-metal dielectric (IMD)  104 , and a passivation layer  106 .  
         [0027]    Furthermore, in order to obtain the biggest temperature gradient (temperature difference) between the hot-junction region  200  and the cold junction region  300  of the thermocouple  102 , a heat pipe  400  is arranged to enhance this effect. The heat pipe structure  400  comprises of at least an interconnection layer and a via hole metal. In this embodiment of invention, the heat pipe structure  400  comprises a portion of the polysilicon layer  102   a , at least one contact hole metal  103   a , at least one via hole metal  104   a , a portion of the first metal layer  102   b , and a portion of the second metal layer  105 , as clearly shown in FIG. 3.  
         [0028]    Refer to FIG. 4, which is a drawing illustrating a temperature gradient analysis of a single sensor  10  contacted with the finger ridge in accordance with FIG. 3. Each of the curve  410 ,  411 ,  412 ,  413 ,  414 ,  415  represents an isothermal curve. Hence, it can be found that the hot-junction region  200  and the cold-junction region  300  are located at different temperature regions and causes a temperature difference ΔT. The analysis result of the temperature difference ΔT is such as shown in FIG. 5A and the FIG. 5B.  
         [0029]    Refer to FIG. 5A and FIG. 5B, which represent the temperature difference AT between the hot- and cold-junctions when in contact with the finger ridge or not at different ambient temperatures (30° C. and 40° C.), respectively. Curve 1 represents the data when the sensor contacts the finger ridge and curve 2 shows the result when the sensor is under the finger valley (non-contact). The analysis result shows that the temperature difference ΔT of curve 2 almost remains at zero ignoring the ambient temperature variations. But, curve 1 has a quite large temperature difference ΔT implying a large signal generated when a sensor is contacted by the finger ridge. Also, this sensing principle can be used for live-body detection.  
         [0030]    As an example, the area of a sensor is 80 μm×80 μm with 60 pairs of thermocouples. The Seeback coefficient of a thermocouple is about 100 (μV/° C.)(polysilicon and Al). If the temperature difference is 1° C., the generated voltage can reach as high as 6 mV which can be easily processed using existed IC technology.  
         [0031]    Refer to FIG. 6, which is a schematic representation illustrating a cross-sectional view of a single thermoelectric sensor, in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention. The difference between FIG. 6 and FIG. 3 is a polysilicon heating resistor  700  formed on the heat isolation structure  101 . The resistor is utilized to heat the hot-junction region  200  of the thermocouple  102  in order to keep its temperature constant and above the finger temperature, so the temperature difference ΔT between the ridge  20  and the sensor device  10  is smaller and the temperature difference ΔT between the valley  21  and the sensor device  10  is higher. An objective of the present invention is to obtain a stable signal output.  
         [0032]    Refer to FIG. 7, which is another embodiment for stabilizing the chip temperature, in accordance with the present invention. The difference betweeen FIG. 7 and FIG. 2 is a thermoelectric cooler  800  (TE-Cooler) to stabilize the ambient temperature of the fingerprint sensor being higher or lower than the temperature of finger, also, to obtain a stable signal output.  
         [0033]    Of course, it is to be understood that the invention described herein need not be limited to these disclosed embodiments. Various modification and similar changes are still possible within the spirit of this invention. In this way, all such variations and modifications are included within the intended scope of the invention and the scope of this invention should be defined by the appended claims. For example, the integrated circuit manufacturing process used for the present invention is, especially, a CMOS process. The basic requirement is to provide at least a polysilicon layer, at least two metal layers and with LOCOS or trench isolation.