Multi-Spectral Smart Retina

Multi-Spectral Smart Retina (MSSR) is a 512x512 array of mercury cadmium telluride detectors backside illuminated through an active silicon substrate. The substrate contains switching circuits to multiplex groups of sixteen detectors onto a common read-out pad. The substrate has deposited on it a checkerboard spectral filter to provide a unique waveband for each of the sixteen detectors. As a result, the 512x512 array can be read out using a 128x128 channel parallel processor. When it is either scanned, a 512x512 image is produced in each of sixteen colors. Coupling of massively parallel signal processing to the MSSR for purposes of atomatic target recognition, aimpoint determination, camouflage penetration, and countermeasure avoidance is enabled without requiring a separate processing channel for each detector element. Initial commercial applications will include security systems followed by high definition television with integrated digital data compression.