Advancements in DEPMOSFET device developments for XEUS

DEPMOSFET based Active Pixel Sensor (APS) matrices are a new detector concept for X-ray imaging spectroscopy missions. They can cope with the challenging requirements of the XEUS Wide Field Imaoer and combine excellent energy resolution, high speed readout and low power consumption with the attractive feature of random accessibility of pixels. From the evaluation of first prototypes, new concepts have been developed to overcome the minor drawbacks and problems encountered for the older devices. The new devices will have a pixel size of 75 pm x 75 mu m. Besides 64 x 64 pixel arrays, prototypes with a sizes of 256 x 256 pixels and 128 x 512 pixels and an active area of about 3.6 cm(2) will be produced, a milestone on the way towards the fully grown XEUS WFI device. The production of these improved devices is currently on the way. At the same time, the development of the next generation of front-end electronics has been started, which will permit to operate the sensor devices with the readout speed required by XEUS. Here, a summary of the DEPFET capabilities, the concept of the sensors of the next generation and the new front-end electronics will be given. Additionally., prospects of new device developments using the DEPFET as a sensitive element are shown, e.g. so-called RNDR-pixels, which feature repetitive non-destructive readout to lower the readout noise below the 1 e(-) ENC limit.