Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems and methods for testing FPAs on a wafer prior to dicing the wafer into individual dies. A focal plane array (FPA) can comprise an array of photodetectors, such as microbolometers, on a semiconductor substrate or die. FPAs can be manufactured on a wafer to make multiple FPAs on a single wafer that can be later diced or divided into individual FPAs. Prior to dicing the wafer, the FPAs can be tested electrically and radiometrically in bulk to characterize individual FPAs, to identify bad pixels, to identify bad chips, to calibrate individual FPAs, and the like. These test results can be used to determine acceptable FPAs and can be used to provide initial settings for imaging systems with the tested and integrated FPA.

Abstract: Edge enhancement of a digital image can include using at least two signal processing paths to adjust a display-formatted pixel value to enhance the appearance of edges in displayed image data. A digital image can be filtered by producing an edge enhancement factor, a, per pixel from at least one look up table (LUT). Digital image data can also be adjusted using at least two signal processing paths, where the image data is adjusted if a pixel value and its neighboring pixel values are all within a smoothing range or where the pixel delta value is outside of a bad pixel range and its neighboring pixel delta values are all within the bad pixel range. In such cases, the image data can be adjusted by replacing the pixel value with an average or median value of the neighboring pixels.

Abstract: A system and method for digitizing data from an imaging system includes sampling a signal from an optical detector with a first circuit having a first attenuation and with a second circuit having a second attenuation different than the first attenuation. The system and method further includes digitizing the sampled signal at a predetermined number of bits desired for an analog to digital conversion of the sampled signal by allocating a first portion of bits to digitizing a signal from the first circuit and allocating a second portion of bits to digitizing a signal from the second circuit. The system and method further includes encoding the first and second portion of bits into one monotonic digital word corresponding to a range of the sampled signal.