Gerald J. Michon

Silicon carbide MOSFET technology

Abstract The research and development activities carried out to demonstrate the status of MOS planar technology for the manufacture of high temperature SiC ICs will be described. These activities resulted in the design, fabrication and demonstration of the worlds first SiC analog IC—a monolithic MOSFET operational amplifier. Research tasks required for the development of a planar SiC MOSFET IC technology included: characterization of the SiCSiO2 interface using thermally grown oxides; high temperature (350°C) reliability studies of thermally grown oxides; ion implantation studies of donor (N) and acceptor (B) dopants to form junction diodes; epitaxial layer characterization; device isolation methods; and finally integrated circuit design, fabrication and testing of the worlds first monolithic SiC operational amplifier IC. High temperature circuit drift instabilities at 350°C were characterized. These studies defined an SiC depletion model MOSFET IC technology and outlined tasks required to improve all types of SiC devices.

SiC flame sensors for gas turbine control systems

Abstract The research and development activities carried out to develop a SiC flame sensor for gas turbines utilized for power generation are discussed. These activities included the fabrication and characterization of SiC UV photodiodes and small SiC signal diodes as well as the designing and testing of production flame detector assemblies. The characteristics that make this solid state flame detector particularly useful for dry low NOx (DLN) premixed oil and natural gas fuels will be described. Since this device provides both analog dc and ac output signals, turbine combustor mode tracking, combustion flame dynamics and flame intensity tracking have been demonstrated. Sensors designed for production have been built, qualified and field tested. These sensors are now being installed in gas turbine power plants and are a component part of the turbine control system. This development has resulted in the first commercialized turbine control application to use SiC electronic devices.

Review Of Charge Injection Device (CID) Technology

The Charge Injection Device (CID) is an x-y addressed solid state imager introduced by General Electric in 1973 as a television sensor. A family of sensors has evolved to exploit the singular CID characteristics and capabilities. This paper describes the structure and principle of operation of a typical CID. A TV compatible differential current sensing mode of operation is described. A multiple non-destructive readout mode is described with examples of application to transform code generation and centroid interpolation. The CID radiation hardening potential is briefly reviewed.

Focal-plane processing algorithm and architecture for laser speckle interferometry

A focal-plane processing array for laser speckle interferometry is described. The imager consists of a 32 X 32 array of analog processing elements which determine the average phase shift of a holographic fringe pattern. The phase computation algorithm requires only the addition, subtraction and rectification (absolute value) of signals from adjacent pixels in the imager. Charge-coupled device structures are used to implement these operations in parallel and eliminate the need to read the pixel data off the array. This allows imager frame rates in excess of 104 frames/sec to be achieved. The imager sensitivity is currently limited by a 20% fill factor and non ideal performance of the rectifier. A higher resolution array is currently being designed which utilizes amorphous silicon photodiodes to improve the fill factor. This design also includes an integrated amplifier at each pixel to obtain photon shot noise limited sensitivity.

The Charge Injection Device (CID) As A Stellar Tracking Sensor

A 128 x 128 element CID imager was operated in a simulated stellar tracking environment and ev8luated f8r temporal and pattern noise and spectral response over a temperature range of -40oC to +25oC. The test devices were fabricated on long-lifetime bulk silicon material and utilized very thin upper-level polysilicon electrodes for enhanced spectral response. A standard microcomputer was used to generate all control signals and to collect and process performance data. The results of this program were used to predict the performance of a 400 x 400 CID array designed specifically for stellar-tracking.

Charge Injection Device As A Candidate Sensor For Stellar Tracking

In the past few years a family of solid state sensors called Charge Transfer Devices (CTDs) have been developed for the television industry. These devices show promise of being superior to the Image Dissector as a stellar sensor and a number of technology programs have begun to develop around the devices. Inherent advantages of these devices are: low voltage requirements, insensitivity to magnetic fields, good linearity, and low weight and power. Two basic types of CTDs have been developed; the Charge Coupled Device (CCD) and the Charge Injection Device (CID). This paper discusses the stellar tracking advantages of the CID over other devices and the work done by the General Electric Co. in developing a CID particularly suited for this application.

Charge Injection Device Focal Plane Processor For Video Bandwidth Compression

A charge injection device (CID) solid-state video sensor/focal plane processor is described which can be used to implement Hadamard transform techniques to reduce video band-width. This device can be operated in two modes. In one mode, the output is a normal video signal. In the second mode, the output is the Hadamard transform of the image. This approach offers an opportunity to relieve the small size and low power requirements imposed by mini-RPV and guided weapon antijam video data link applications by performing the transform processing function of the airborne encoder directly on the image plane. A description of the CID imager, the one- and two-dimensional Hadamard transform implementation of the focal plane processing chip, and preliminary test results are included.