Statistical Characterization Of A Large PtSi Focal Plane Array

Schottky barrier diode charge coupled device infrared focal plane arrays exist with thousands of pixel elements. Fabrication of these large 2-D imagers is made possible by the simple design of the unit cell which can be repeated using modern CAD equipment as well as the maturity of the -2μm silicon process. Large 2-D imagers of the kind will invariably have different characteristics than their 1-D (-500 pixel element) scanning counterparts. The quantity of pixels in the Schottky array makes their characterization on a one by one basis an intractable problem. Instead, statistics can be used to quantify the array performance on a global scale. The use of statistics simplifies the extraction of uniquely two dimensional imager characteristics and system parameters.