Large format short-wave infrared (SWIR) focal plane array (FPA) with extremely low noise and high dynamic range

David Acton; Michael Jack; Todd Sessler

doi:10.1117/12.818695

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6 May 2009 Large format short-wave infrared (SWIR) focal plane array (FPA) with extremely low noise and high dynamic range

David Acton, Michael Jack, Todd Sessler

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Proceedings Volume 7298, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXV; 72983E (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.818695
Event: SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing, 2009, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

Raytheon Vision Systems (RVS) has obtained the initial performance data on a 1280x1024 format short wave infrared (SWIR) sensor with a dark current of 1 nA/cm² and low noise input circuit of five noise electrons (5 e-), which is 2× lower electronic read-out noise and 2× lower dark current than previous designs. A remarkable feature of the sensor is that a novel high dynamic range circuit is also designed into the 15 × 15 μm pixel unit cell, in a large format, high density 1280×1024 SWIR FPA. The integration of the conflicting design requirements of extremely low noise with high dynamic range allows recognition of low contrast targets, without saturation from bright sources within the same frame of information. This enables operation in urban environments at low levels of ambient illumination, and simultaneously with bright sources that saturate conventional sensors.

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David Acton, Michael Jack, and Todd Sessler "Large format short-wave infrared (SWIR) focal plane array (FPA) with extremely low noise and high dynamic range", Proc. SPIE 7298, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXV, 72983E (6 May 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.818695

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