SAAZ has been awarded a contract by the United States Air Force to develop a radiation-hardened, event-based sensor (EBS) readout integrated circuit (ROIC) for next-generation space-based infrared (IR) imaging, extending the design beyond the non-radiation-hardened ROIC version SAAZ has already completed.
The new ROIC is engineered to operate at the cryogenic temperatures IR sensing requires while withstanding the radiation environment of space, including total ionizing dose and single event effects. Holding performance under both conditions is a requirement for missions that need to preserve data quality over years in orbit.
Power efficiency is central to the design. Programmable regions of interest let the ROIC direct power to the parts of a scene that matter, supporting longer mission durations on a fixed power budget. The architecture supports both conventional imaging and event-based sensing in a single device, pairing full scene context with fast target tracking.
SAAZ’s pixel circuit work targets improved signal to noise ratio, dual polarity handling, and on-chip processing across a range of IR flux levels. Radiation-hardened design decisions are validated through simulation across the ROIC’s full operating temperature range.
Because the radiation-hardened version builds on a completed, non-hardened ROIC, the required design changes are limited and the path to space-qualified packaging is shorter. SAAZ is targeting flight demonstration as its next milestone toward bringing the ROIC to market.
About SAAZ
SAAZ Micro Inc. is a deep-tech company that designs and manufactures advanced full spectrum electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) image sensors from UV to LWIR, detector electronics, and camera systems for space, airborne, defense, and specialty imaging applications. SAAZ produces imagers, avalanche photodiode (APD) detectors, event-based vision sensors, LiDAR receivers, and laser communication (Lasercom) receivers. SAAZ operates AS9100D and ISO 9001 certified facilities.
