Abstract

World’s largest radiation-hard 0.35 um CMOS imager (approx. 13 cm square) for medical imaging applications with superior performance compared to existing technology – faster speed and lower patient dose. Largest possible device on 8” (200 mm) silicon wafer. Demonstrated true charge binning in CMOS imagers for the first time, dual resolution pixel arrays, multiple read-out of selected regions for faster speed and reduced data bandwidths, “lossless” butting for large imager mosaics, fully radiation-hard pixel array (tested up to 8 MRad at 38 MeV protons), and non-destructive readout for accumulating weak signals. Funded by £1.2m EPSRC Translation Grant(EP/G037671/1), which was follow-on from £4.4m Basic Technology MI-3 (GR/S85733/01) consortium. Fully met one of EPSRC Grand Challenges for microelectronics - large-area images for medical applications. Variant of the device transferred into industry through Perkin-Elmer Corp (major global supplier) - "Slingshot" imager (10 x 15 cm) was realised in Autumn 2012 and will feature in Perkin-Elmer product by Autumn 2013.. DynAMITe was first reported in M Esposito, T Anaxagoras, A Fant, K Wells, A Konstantinidis, J P F Osmond, P M Evans, R D Speller and N M Allinson, "DynAMITe: A Wafer Scale Sensor for Biomedical Applications", J. Instrumentation 6, 1-12 (2011). Shortlisted for British Engineering Excellent Award, 2011 and exhibited at Photonics Europe 2012, Brussels. Design produced two patents – realisation of multiple resolution arrays, edgeless butting technology, etc. (GB2011/051300 and P300185GB). Led to formation of ISDI Ltd (2011) – spinout company, with substantial commercial current order book and 7 contracted CMOS designers, with plans for commercial 20 cm square devices (12” wafer) by 2013.