High Voltage CMOS control interface for astronomy—Grade charged coupled devices

The Pan-STARRS telescope consists of an array of smaller mirrors viewed by a Giga-pixel arrays of CCDs. These focal planes employ Orthogonal Transfer CCDs (OTCCDs) to allow on-chip image stabilization. Each OTCCD has advanced logic features that are controlled externally. A CMOS Interface Device for High Voltage has been developed to provide the appropiate voltage signal levels from a readout and control system designated STARGRASP. OTCCD chip output levels range from -3.3V to 16.7V, with two different output drive strengths required depending on load capacitance (50pF and 1000pF), with 24mA of drive and a rise time on the order of 100ns. Additional testing Wilkinson ADC structures have been included in this chip to evaluate future functional additions for a next version of the chip.