Self scanned charge coupled optical imaging array

A 20 × 20 self scanned optical imaging array was designed and fabricated on a 102 × 102 mils chip using the silicon gate technology. The array consists of 400 optical sensing charge coupled units accessed by two novel 20 bit shift registers. The shift registers are charge coupled devices and employ a new technique to give a serial to parallel output for every bit. The basic optical unit consists of a silicon gate integrating electrode, two x and y transfer silicon gate electrodes and a p⁺diffusion which acts as a common output for the entire line. The organization and design considerations of the array will be described. Experimental results on the basic optical unit which include noise equivalent power, photosensitivity as a function of integration time and spectral response will be given.