Patent ID: 7737400

Claim:
A bolometer type uncooled infrared ray sensor comprising: an image pickup region having detection pixels arranged in a matrix form on a semiconductor substrate to detect incident infrared rays, each of the detection pixels being formed of one or more diodes connected in series; a plurality of row selection lines provided in the image pickup region so as to respectively correspond to rows of the detection pixels and connected to anodes of the diodes in the respectively corresponding rows; current sources capable of letting constant currents flow through the respective row selection lines; a plurality of signal lines provided in the image pickup region so as to respectively correspond to columns of the detection pixels and connected to cathodes of the diodes in the respectively corresponding columns; voltage readout circuits provided so as to respectively correspond to the signal lines to read out signal voltages generated on the respectively corresponding signal lines; coupling capacitances respectively provided between the respective signal lines and the corresponding voltage readout circuits; and a calculator which calculates a difference between two signal voltages read out by the voltage readout circuits, corresponding to outputs of the same detection pixel for two different current values supplied from the current sources.