Design of radiation hard CMOS APS image sensors for space applications

The overall objective the research work described in this paper was to design a radiation hard CMOS active pixel sensor (APS), which is intended for use in imaging systems flown on future NASA space missions in the era of ever decreasing mass and power budgets. The radiation hard designs of essential circuits required to enable the design of an experimental radiation hard CMOS APS image sensor are described. The completed design of a radiation hard CMOS APS image sensor is presented as well. The database of this design has been submitted to a mask house for a mask set generation and then fabrication. Plans for characterizing the chips after fabrication are currently being devised. This research work concludes that radiation hard CMOS APS image sensors are attainable. The combination of employing physical design techniques and a deep submicron standard CMOS fabrication process provides the path to radiation hard CMOS APS image sensors. Utilizing commercial standard CMOS fabrication processes to realize radiation hard image sensors makes economic sense. The cost element associated with these standard processes is less (by at least a factor of two) than the cost element associated with specialized radiation hard processes.