A smart sensor integrated circuit for NASA's new millennium spacecraft

The modern space era can greatly benefit from the rapidly growing microelectronics technologies in order to enable the ambitious exploratory and commercial space endeavors of the new millennium. A smart sensor, analog/digital, integrated circuit, suitable for spacecraft avionics data acquisition and control is presented. The Remote Input/Output (RIO) device is developed by The Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory, for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to support many oncoming new millennium space missions. RIO is designed to interface to temperature, pressure, total radiation dose sensors, and generally to voltage/current transducers. The microchip includes front-end conditioning circuitry, an ADC, memory, serial and CPU interface, and a digital port. Furthermore the device is developed to meet extreme space qualification specifications such as radiation effects. This versatile system-on-a-chip device is becoming a key enabling technology for new-generation NASA and Commercial spacecraft systems. Missions that are intended to use the RIO device are the: Europa Orbiter, Deep Space 4, Solar Probe, Pluto Express, Mars Sample Return, Stereo, Contour, etc.