Electronics (Aug 2023)

High-Density Pixel Imaging Sensor Readout Electronics for Space Applications: A Design Overview

  • Massimo Minuti,
  • Carmelo Sgrò,
  • Luca Baldini,
  • Ronaldo Bellazzini,
  • Alessandro Brez,
  • Simone Castellano,
  • Niccolo Di Lalla,
  • Luca Latronico,
  • Simone Maldera,
  • Alberto Manfreda,
  • Melissa Pesce-Rollins,
  • Gloria Spandre,
  • Mattia Barbanera,
  • Saverio Citraro,
  • Leonardo Lucchesi,
  • Carlo Magazzù,
  • Guido Magazzù,
  • Paolo Mereu,
  • Federico Mosti,
  • Alessio Nuti,
  • Leonardo Orsini,
  • Hikmat Nasimi,
  • Michele Pinchera,
  • Davide Zanetti,
  • Fabio Borotto,
  • Marco Ceccanti,
  • Marco Marengo,
  • Alessandro Profeti,
  • Ciro Caporale,
  • Claudia Cardelli,
  • Marcello Tardiola,
  • Fabrizio Amici,
  • Primo Attinà,
  • Matteo Bachetti,
  • Daniele Brienza,
  • Mauro Centrone,
  • Enrico Costa,
  • Ettore Del Monte,
  • Sergio Di Cosimo,
  • Alessandro Di Marco,
  • Giuseppe Di Persio,
  • Yuri Evangelista,
  • Sergio Fabiani,
  • Riccardo Ferrazzoli,
  • Fabio La Monaca,
  • Carlo Lefevre,
  • Pasqualino Loffredo,
  • Alfredo Morbidini,
  • Fabio Muleri,
  • Matteo Perri,
  • Raffaele Piazzolla,
  • Maura Pilia,
  • John Rankin,
  • Ajay Ratheesh,
  • Alda Rubini,
  • Francesco Santoli,
  • Emanuele Scalise,
  • Paolo Soffitta,
  • Antonino Tobia,
  • Alessio Trois,
  • Fei Xie,
  • Rita Carpentiero,
  • Marco Castronuovo,
  • Elisabetta Cavazzuti,
  • Fabio D’Amico,
  • Immacolata Donnarumma,
  • Barbara Negri,
  • Simonetta Puccetti,
  • Luca Cavalli,
  • Elisa D’Alba,
  • Paolo Lorenzi,
  • Elio Mangraviti,
  • Paolo Sarra,
  • Andrea Sciortino,
  • Marco Vimercati,
  • Stefano Pieraccini,
  • Francesco Zanetti

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12173589
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 17
p. 3589

Abstract

Read online

With the specialization of VLSI ASICs for front-end signal processing electronics, the customization of the control back-end electronics (BEE) has become critical to fully deploy the ASIC performance. In the context of space operations, with typical constraints on power and reliability, the design and qualification of such integrated systems present significant challenges. In this paper, we review the design and performance of the BEE systems after two years of operations in low Earth orbit (LEO); these systems read out the custom ASICs inside the gas pixel detectors, which are located at the heart of the imaging X-ray polarimetry explorer (IXPE), a NASA-ASI small explorer mission designed to measure X-ray polarization in the 2–8 keV energy range.

Keywords