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※Shin-nosuke Ishikawa, T. Takahashi, S. Watanabe (ISAS/JAXA), N. Narukage, S. Miyazaki(NAOJ), T. Orita, S. Takeda (OIST), M. Nomachi (Osaka Univ.), S. Saito (Rikkyo Univ.), !
I. Fujishiro and F. Hodoshima (Shimafuji Electric Inc.)※ s.ishikawa@solar.isas.jaxa.jp

Abstract
We developed a system combining a back-illuminated CMOS sensor and Xilinx Zynq system-on-chip (SoC) device for high-speed soft X-ray(0.5-10 keV) imaging and spectroscopy observation of the Sun to investigate dynamics of the solar corona. We use the Zynq SoC device toachieve X-ray photon counting measurements with a frame rate of ~1000 frames per second. We are going to use the system for the Focusing
Optics Solar X-ray Imager (FOXSI) sounding rocket experiment for the ﬁrst 2-dimensional X-ray imaging and spectroscopy of the Sun.

Soft X-ray observation of the Sun with the sounding rocket
Since a typical timescale of phenomena in the solar corona is a few minutes or less, X-ray
imaging and spectroscopic observation was not realized with slow readout speed of CCD cameras.
We will achieve the ﬁrst soft X-ray (0.5-10 keV) imaging spectroscopy of the Sun by using a highspeed back-illuminated CMOS sensor with a frame rate of 1000 frames per second for an arealarger than 100 x 1000 pixels (See presentation 394 by Narukage et al.).
We will apply this technique for the third ﬂight Focusing Optics Solar X-ray Imager (FOXSI-3),
international collaboration sounding rocket experiment by University of Minnesota,!
University of California, Berkeley, NASA and JAXA. !
2 m focal length
FOXSI achieved high-sensitivity hard X-ray !
X-ray optics
observations of the Sun, and the combination !
Detectors
with the soft X-ray instrument for FOXSI-3 will!
cover wider detectable temperature range.

FOXSI soft X-ray observation summary
Energy range
Energy resolution
Focal length
Spatial resolution
Field of view!

Observational !
duration
Launch site!

Launch date

〜0.5-10 keV
240 eV FWHM (@5.9 keV)
2m〜5ʼʼ FWHM !
Almost entire solar disk !
(high-speed readout is for a part !
of the ﬁeld of view)〜360 sWhite Sands Missile Range, !
New Mexico, USA
August 2018

CMOS sensor for the ﬂight

Readout board “ZDAQ”

We will use a back-illuminated CMOS
imaging sensor with low-noise and highspeed readout capability to realize soft
X-ray imaging and spectroscopy from !
0.5 keV (Narukage et al., in prep.). !
The output data rate of the sensor is !
High-speed CMOS sensor for the ﬂight.
2.4 Gbps, and we need a readout system
to drive the sensor, acquire and save high-speed data with a compact size andvacuum capability to launch by the sounding rocket.

For the ﬂight, we developed a new powerful and compact
data acquisition board “ZDAQ” with a Zynq chip, enoughnumber of I/O ports to drive the CMOS sensor and several
interfaces (USB3.0, PCIexpress, Gigabit Ether andSpaceWire), as a general purpose data acquisition module.
Many applications are possible for high-speed and large
volume data acquisition system.

。

High-speed DAQ system with Zynq SoC

Zynq board

Backilluminated
CMOS sensor

signals

Image data(2.4 Gbps)

LVCMOS
I/O!

USB 3.0
PCIe x 41000Base EtherSpaceWire x3
96 LVCMOS I/O48 LVDS I/O pairs
256 MB SDRAM buﬀer
Photo of the ZDAQ board

We also developed a board “ZDAQ-ANALOG-1” for 200 Msps A/D,
D/A conversion and DDS easily connectable to ZDAQ.

Zynq SoCPL

LVDS input

PS

USB
controller
USB 3.0

Data storage(>300 GB for the ﬂight)

Block diagram of the high-speed CMOS readout system (left), Photo of
the prototype system (top right) and obtained image (bottom right)

Summary

2000

1500

y [pix]Control

SoC chip:!
ZYNQ XC7Z045 with !
ARM Cortex A9 CPU core!
(Dual core, 667 MHz)

200 mmWe will use a device in the Xilinx All-Programmable System-on-Chip (AP SoC)
Zynq series to realize the high-speed data acquisition during the ﬂight. Zynq has
ﬂexibility of software (asynchronous) and high-speed of hardware (synchronous)
by combining ARM CPU core (processing system, PS) and programmable logic(PL) part in a single chip. Close connection between PS and PL provides highbandwidth, and we can achieve the high-speed imaging and spectroscopy byusing PL to control the sensor and receive data, and PS to record the data with !
a ﬁle structure using an operating system. !
To conﬁrm this concept, we developed a prototype !
system with a commercial Zynq evaluation board ZYBO, !
and we successfully read and save image data from !
the CMOS sensor for the ﬂight.

1 GB DDR3
SD card slot!
(for boot)

1000

500

00500

1000
x [pix]

1500

2000

・For the ﬁrst 2-dimentional soft X-ray imaging and !
spectroscopy with the FOXSI-3 sounding rocket !
experiment, we developed a readout board with Zynq SoC.!
・The prototype system successfully acquire data from !
the CMOS sensor for the ﬂight, and we developed the new !
data acquisition board ZDAQ for the FOXSI-3 ﬂight and !
other applications.