Characterization of multiport solid state imagers at megahertz data rates

Abstract

Test results obtained from two recently developed multiport Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) operated at pixel rates in the 10-to-100 MHz range will be presented. The CCDs were evaluated in Los Alamos National Laboratory's High Speed Solid State Imager Test Station (HSTS) which features PC-based programmable clock waveform generation (Tektronix DAS 9200) and synchronously clocked Digital Sampling Oscilloscopes (LeCroy 9424/9314 series) for CCD pixel data acquisition, analysis, and storage. The HSTS also provided special designed optical pinhole array test patterns in the 5-to-50 micron diameter range for use with Xenon Strobe and pulsed laser light sources to simultaneously provide multiple single-pixel illumination patterns to study CCD point-spread-function (PSF) and pixel smear characteristics. The two CCDs tested, EEV model CCD-13 and EG&G Reticon model HSO512J are both 512 X 512 pixel arrays with eight and sixteen video output ports respectively. Both devices are generically Frame Transfer CCDs designed for parallel bi- directional vertical readout to augment their multiport design for increased pixel rates over common single port serial readout architecture. Although both CCDs were tested similarly, differences in their designs precluded normalization or any direct comparisons of test results. Rate dependent parameters investigated include S/N, PSF, and MTF. The performance observed for the two imagers at various pixel rates from selected typical output ports is discussed.