Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (Belgium)

MEDUSA is the lightweight high resolution camera, designed to be operated from a solar-powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flying at stratospheric altitudes. The instrument is a technology demonstrator within the Pegasus program and targets applications such as crisis management and cartography. A special wide swath CMOS imager has been developed by Cypress Semiconductor Cooperation Belgium to meet the specific sensor requirements of MEDUSA. The CMOS sensor has a stitched design comprising a panchromatic and color sensor on the same die. Each sensor consists of 10000*1200 square pixels (5.5μm size, novel 6T architecture) with micro-lenses. The exposure is performed by means of a high efficiency snapshot shutter. The sensor is able to operate at a rate of 30fps in full frame readout. Due to a novel pixel design, the sensor has low dark leakage of the memory elements (PSNL) and low parasitic light sensitivity (PLS). Still it maintains a relative high QE (Quantum efficiency) and a FF (fill factor) of over 65%. It features an MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) higher than 60% at Nyquist frequency in both X and Y directions The measured optical/electrical crosstalk (expressed as MTF) of this 5.5um pixel is state-of-the art. These properties makes it possible to acquire sharp images also in low-light conditions.

We present the key results of multiple radiation characterization campaigns of the HAS2 radiation-hardened active pixel sensor (APS). These characterizations encompassed Cobalt-60 total ionizing dose, proton and electron displacement damage tests at room and low temperature. This gives us the opportunity to discuss the influence on this APS of two phenomena that had been previously observed on charge coupled devices (CCDs): room temperature displacement damage defect annealing, and non-ionizing energy loss (NIEL) scaling between electron and proton irradiations.

High-tech companies in the USA have hit the annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, which allow skilled workers from outside the US to work there. US legislators have been aided and abetted by labor unions and trade associations like IEEE-USA, which argue that immigrant engineers take jobs away from US citizens, increasing unemployment and depressing wages. Which point of view does the data support? For the purpose of this article, I focus on two points I believe have been consistently distorted in the context of the H-1B debate: (1) Skilled foreign workers do not take jobs from domestic workers, but in fact create lots of additional jobs. (2) IEEE-USA is lobbying the US Congress in a manner that is not only contrary to IEEE members' best interests but antithetical to their instincts as engineers. The vast majority of engineers base their decisions and positions on facts, abhor politics and have a natural aversion to the games that characterize "business as usual" on Capitol Hill.