mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (03/26/89)
>Year 1984 1987 1989 1992 >Defect density [cm^(-2)] 1.83 1.16 0.72 0.38 This is not a computer issue, but it is a chip issue - so - What I want is a BIG CCD camera chip. How do these relate in manufacturability to memories or CPU's. They are certainly simpler than CPU's, but are they as easy as DRAMS's? One can get 1 cm square ones now, but I would like a much bigger one - say 2x2 or even 3x3 cm. At a defect rate of 0.5 per cm square there would seem to be a good possibility of making 2x2's. What is the current state of these things - I am not aware of being able to actually buy big ones. Doug McDonald
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (03/27/89)
In article <46500056@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >What I want is a BIG CCD camera chip... >What is the current state of these things - I am not aware of >being able to actually buy big ones. They can be bought. Bring lots of money. The market is small -- astronomy and other specialized sensing fields -- and they are horribly expensive. The ads in Sky&Telescope and Astronomy might help, although they're mostly aimed at amateur budgets. Don't expect perfect chips for any sane price; accepting some defects will help. -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
grandi@noao.edu (Steve Grandi) (03/29/89)
In article <46500056@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >What I want is a BIG CCD camera chip. How do these relate in >manufacturability to memories or CPU's. They are certainly simpler >than CPU's, but are they as easy as DRAMS's? One can get 1 cm square >ones now, but I would like a much bigger one - say 2x2 or even 3x3 cm. Tektronix has been trying to manufacture 2048 x 2048 CCD chips with 27 micron pixels for several years (that's 5.5cm plus a border). So far no "astronomy grade" chips have been produced, but several "engineering" grade chips are floating around. It is, apparently, not an easy chip to build. Oh yes, an astronomy grade chip, ordered now, would probably cost you from $80-100K (we got our orders in years ago before Tektronix figured out how hard the problem was; so we are only in for $50K a chip!). -- Steve Grandi, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson AZ, 602-325-9228 UUCP: {arizona,decvax,ncar}!noao!grandi or uunet!noao.edu!grandi Internet: grandi@noao.edu SPAN/HEPNET: NOAO::GRANDI (NOAO=5355)
shs@uts.amdahl.com (Steve Schoettler) (04/07/89)
In article <46500056@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >>Year 1984 1987 1989 1992 >>Defect density [cm^(-2)] 1.83 1.16 0.72 0.38 > >What I want is a BIG CCD camera chip. How do these relate in >manufacturability to memories or CPU's. This is the classic application for a neural network! More seriously, there have been some good ideas on image processing with partial data. Here are some relevant papers in case you're interested: Carnevali, P. and Coletti, L., and Patarnello, S. "Image Processing by Simulated Annealing," IBM Journal of Research and Development 29(6):569-579, 1985. Geman, Stuart and Geman, Donald. "Stochastic Relaxation, Gibbs Distributions, and the Bayesian Restoration of Images," IEEE PAMI 6:721-741, 1984. Steve -- Steve Schoettler shs@uts.amdahl.com {sun,decwrl,pyramid,ames,uunet}!amdahl!shs Amdahl Corp., M/S 213, 1250 E. Arques Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94088