Digital Readout Integrated Circuit for Infrared Focal Plane Array

Program objective is to develop the high dynamic range, affordable, SLS-based LWIR sensor for visually degraded environments (VDE), such as brownout. This is a serious issue for helicopters, as the rotor wash creates a near zero visibility environment. The LWIR Sensor-VDE features the Mixed-Mode architecture which enables very high dynamic range (19 bits) while providing near ideal signal to noise ratio (SNR). The proposed Sensor-VDE has a large 2048x2048 format, 10 m pitch, and an effective well size of 40 million electrons. In Phase I Nu-Trek designed a test chip with most of the key circuits, such as an array of 16 input cells, 3 types of DRAM cells, a 7-bit DRAM counter, clock buffers and inverters, output buffers, on-chip bias supplies and clocks. The test chip is currently being fabricated and will be available for testing early in Phase II. Other Phase II tasks include designing, taping out, and testing the DROIC-VDE and FPA-VDE, preparing a preliminary design of a camera core, outlining the image processing and image fusion engine, and developing requirements for transition into current and future helicopter sensor payloads.