ALPHACORE INC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase II: 24h

Description

Alphacore intends to submit a proposal for a Sequential Phase IIC grant. Thus far in Phase II Alphacore has developed and delivered an initial prototype of a radiation-hardened 10,000-pixel camera with custom- designed 10,000-frames-per-second (10kpfs) capable image sensor IC, camera control PCB with FPGA and interface to a PC, and an enclosure allowing different lens options. Most of Alphacore's engineering hours have focused on the design of an optimized, 1-megapixel, 10kfps, radiation-hardened CMOS image sensor. This sensor has ultra-sensitive, radiation-hardened pinned photodiode pixels. The SPICE model for the full chip architecture is functional and transistor-level designs have been completed for 50% of the circuit blocks. Physical layout design has been started for many critical circuit blocks. Board architecture and bill of materials (component list) for the camera that can handle 100Gb/s data rate from the image sensor has been developed. Selection of radiation-hard components is underway. To keep the camera cost as low for Nuclear Physics experiment community, we are sourcing standard components that have been irradiation tested and reported to be radiation-tolerant by NASA, CERN or some other entity. Such components will be at least an order of magnitude less expensive than components that have been especially produced for radiation tolerance and are space-qualified. Designing and building a complete camera system, including a first spin of the full camera sensor ASIC with more than 100 million transistors on it - with the highest sampling rate of any existing megapixel class camera! - is a labor-intensive task. Moreover, meeting the stringent radiation hardness requirement at least doubles the complexity. We are resolute that all system components must be fully qualified as rad-hard (expensive), have undergone radiation testing by someone else, or be tested by Alphacore itself. Our proposal focuses on collaboration with a partner specializing in the ADAS market which is driving 15 tasks listed that we are addressing. They are expected to be our main partner targeting this large market. ON Semiconductor in nearby Phoenix is another partner for advanced autonomous ADAS applications. We therefore will apply for a Sequential Phase IIC grant to continue necessary development tasks to ensure that that camera will both perform satisfactorily under harsh environments present in experimental environments and be affordable for the NP community. To achieve these conflicting goals, we will need additional funding to conduct comprehensive radiation effect evaluations (based on target environment requirements) of the components used in the camera. This will include both comprehensive research of radiation test results published by others and extensive radiation effect testing by Alphacore. These rigorous tasks, in addition to the continuing development and testing of a second design spin of the megapixel image sensor after the current Phase II and the full camera system, fully justify a Sequential Phase IIA SBIR program. That there is a demonstrated need in the Nuclear Physics community for this product (stated by both JLAB and BNL), as well as the scientific achievement of creating the world’s fastest rad-hard camera, underlies the strong motivation for granting this request.