<title>Single-chip CCD waveform generator and sequencer</title>

Abstract

There are a number of application areas of CCDs in ground and space based astronomy and earth observation, which could benefit from compact but versatile control electronics. These include visible imaging and spectroscopy, auto-guiding, star tracking and wavefront sensors. We describe here our design of an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) which integrates the complete functionality of a dedicated programmable waveform generator and waveform sequencer to provide a CCD controller on a single chip. The ASIC can sustain waveform state changes at the clock rate of up to 40 MHz, and can implement complete sequence changes on a frame by frame basis. The ASIC is designed specifically to provide programmable CCD waveform generation and sequencing, and thus yields significant shrinkage in component count, circuit complexity, PCB circuit size, and power dissipation compared to previous DSP or general purpose microprocessor-based design solutions. More compact and light weight cameras are thus realized without compromising the ability to program any complexity of CCD waveform patterns and waveform sequences such as multiple window and/or pixel binning readout format. A second generation ASIC is to be fabricated on a radiation hard silicon process for use in Space-borne CCD camera systems. Applications of our prototype ASIC will be presented along with future development plans.