Rockwell, UMC codevelop IC for astronomy apps

Rockwell Scientific Co. (RSC) and UMC have jointly developed a readout IC (ROIC), the HAWAII-2RG, to be used on infrared astronomy applications.

Designed by RSC and fabricated by UMC, the 40-by-40 mm ROIC is used with RSC's infrared detectors to produce astronomy focal plane arrays (FPAs) with a base resolution of 4.2 million pixels and mosaic resolution of 16.8 million pixels.

"UMC is committed to expanding its foundry business with emerging products such as CMOS-based imaging sensors with innovators such as RSC. In fact, we have already engaged with RSC on technical developments for its potential involvement in the Next Generation Space Telescope, and CMOS sensors for HDTV cameras," said Fu Tai Liou, chief officer of worldwide marketing and sales at UMC.