A high speed tapped CCD photodiode linear image sensor

A tapped charge-coupled photodiode (CCPD) array for high speed document scanning applications has been developed. This linear sensor array is comprised of 1024 photodiode elements divided into 8 sections of 128 elements each and accessed by 16 CCD analog shift registers. This arrangement allows the device to operate at a maximum output data rate of 160 MHz. Utilizing diffused photodiodes for photosensing and CCD registers for low-noise signal extraction, this device has a dynamic range of 1000:1 and spectral response from .2 µm to 1.1 µm. The modular design also permits arrays of 512 or 256 elements.