Active pixel sensors: The sensor of choice for future space applications

Active pixel sensors: The sensor of choice for future space applications

Leijtens, J.
Theuwissen, A.
Rao, P.R.
Wang, X.
Xie, N.

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Electronic Instrumentation

2007-10-12

It is generally known that active pixel sensors (APS) have a number of advantages over CCD detectors if it comes to cost for mass production, power consumption and ease of integration. Nevertheless, most space applications still use CCD detectors because they tend to give better performance and have a successful heritage. To this respect a change may be at hand with the advent of deep sub-micron processed APS imagers (< 0.25-micron feature size). Measurements performed on test structures at the University of Delft have shown that the imagers are very radiation tolerant even if made in a standard process without the use of special design rules. Furthermore it was shown that the 1/f noise associated with deep sub-micron imagers is reduced as compared to previous generations APS imagers due to the improved quality of the gate oxides. Considering that end of life performance will have to be guaranteed, limited budget for adding shielding metal will be available for most applications and lower power operations is always seen as a positive characteristic in space applications, deep sub-micron APS imagers seem to have a number of advantages over CCD's that will probably cause them to replace CCD's in those applications where radiation tolerance and low power operation are important

0,18 micron
CMOS
APS
sunsensor
microned
TNO
TU-Delft
radiation tolerant
low noise

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6b8936b8-d2c0-4aa1-9b32-1a579c0c53bb

SPIE

0277-786X

Proceedings of SPIE, 2007 vol. 6744

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c)2007 Leijtens, J., Theuwissen, A., rao, P.R., Wang, X., Xie, N.