Readout Integrated Circuit (IC) Technology for Strained Layer Superlattice Photodetectors

Intrinsix will develop an IR Digital Focal Plane Array (DFPA) enabled by high performance Sigma-Delta-Modulation (SDM) based Analog to Digital conversion (ADC). Benefits include: 1. Support for a wide range of Strained Layer Super lattice detectors a. Per frame support for two color operation (N-on-P / P-on-N) implemented using embedded CTIA integrators with a programmable reset level b. Extended dynamic range DFPA including first order cancelation of dark current DC component 2. High dynamic range SDM-based programmable acquisition fabric a. High density integration capacity coupled with SDM ADC technology enables 4X to 16X increase in dynamic range, meaning the noise floor is set by the sensor and not the ROIC b. Programmable SDM bandwidth enables in-system trade off of SNR, power and frame rate c. Redundant ADCs improve both reliability and image quality 3. Slice Based Digital FPA a. Slice based ADC with industry standard digital serial interface reduces development time and NRE to deploy new systems b. System complexity goes up linearly rather than as the square of the dimensions. c. Low cost, high volume Silicon Fabrication technology d. Low Power digital output focal plane with power specifications comparable to analog focal planes without the ADC BENEFIT: An objective of the Air Force with this solicitation is to improve performance for SLS based focal planes. The Intrinsix Digital Focal Plane ROIC will deliver SLS Focal Plane Arrays with the best performance on the market. With modest success as SLS evolves we expect that a few million dollars a year in revenue can be made servicing military SLS market needs. Second, the Intrinsix Digital Focal Plane Array Read Out Integrated Circuit (DFPA-ROIC) innovates on two fundamental specifications of any ROIC: dynamic range and power. Thus it is applicable not only to the $6.6B per year SLS market but to other ROIC markets using non-SLS detectors as well. One can expect that with modest commercial success leveraging this technology, a business in the range of 10 to 20 million dollars per year can be captured as additional ROICs are configured for other detectors and market segments.