SSAM: Solid-State Automated Microscope

A new microscope system that is designed to provide images for a computer has been built and tested. This system differs from previous computerized microscopes in that the fundamental design parameters have been tuned to the computer as the receiver of the image instead of the human visual system. This solid-state automated microscope system (SSAM) simultaneously provides wide-field (2mm), high-resolution (0.5 μ), high signal-to-noise images (53 dB) at data rates of 5 X 106 pixels/s. Various methods have been developed and used to test the design specifications of the system against the actual performance.