3D packaged camera head for space use

Abstract

Miniaturization is an essential requirement for development of space-borne electronics hardware. Recently, advancements in the device and packaging technology such as Analog Front End (AFE), FPGA and ASIC has enabled on-board designers to develop space worthy, high reliability miniaturized hardware meeting the functional and performance requirements. HMC, SIP, 3D packaging technology etc. can further miniaturize the hardware by embedding dice, devices, active and passive components. 3D packaging technology, which is ESA qualified, allows us to integrate packaged devices and printed circuit boards (PCB) with high reliability vertical interconnections. It is possible to migrate from existing PCB designs along with the same bill of material to 3D packaging technology. A development of miniaturized camera module consisting of 4K elements linear detector, detector drive electronics, analog video processing and digitizing electronics, timing and control logic along with serial data output has been carried out for space use using 3D packaging. Brief details of this camera hardware, development steps and realization challenges along with test results are given in this paper.