Systematic testing and results of X-ray CCDs developed for eROSITA and other applications

An advanced pnCCD type has been developed, based on the concept of the XMM-Newton detector, which has been performing spectroscopy and imaging since 2000. This new detector is designed according to the requirements of eROSITA, a new X-ray astronomy mission, to be launched in 2010. The focal plane for each of the seven individual Wolter telescopes will be equipped with one of these new-type X-ray pnCCDs. In addition to the eROSITA chips, we have developed CCDs for other applications, e.g. for projects which require smaller pixel sizes. The devices that have been produced in the semiconductor laboratory (MPI Halbleiterlabor) of the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik are currently subject of systematic quality checks and spectroscopic tests. These tests are performed under standardized conditions on a representative subset of the many devices we have produced. The aim of these tests is to extract the key performance parameters of the individual CCDs like readout noise, energy resolution and the occurrence of bad pixels. The analysis includes the CAMEX analog signal processor, which has been developed for the readout of the CCD signals. After an introduction, we present the motivation for the detector development and give an overview about our CCD design and production, as well as about the CAMEX ASIC. Then device tests, test setups and data analysis are described. We report in detail about the performance of the tested devices. Failures that occurred during device tests are subsequently discussed. Finally, we give a review of the results.