High-speed camera based on a CMOS active pixel sensor

Hans S. Bloss; Juergen D. Ernst; Heidrun Firla; Sybille C. Schmoelz; Stephan K. Gick; Stefan C. Lauxtermann

doi:10.1117/12.378878

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29 February 2000 High-speed camera based on a CMOS active pixel sensor

Hans S. Bloss, Juergen D. Ernst, Heidrun Firla, Sybille C. Schmoelz, Stephan K. Gick, Stefan C. Lauxtermann

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Proceedings Volume 3968, High-Speed Imaging and Sequence Analysis II; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.378878
Event: Electronic Imaging, 2000, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

Standard CMOS technologies offer great flexibility in the design of image sensors, which is a big advantage especially for high framerate system. For this application we have integrated an active pixel sensor with 256 X 256 pixel using a standard 0.5 micrometers CMOS technologies. With 16 analog outputs and a clockrate of 25-30 MHz per output, a continuous framerate of more than 50000 Hz is achieved. A global synchronous shutter is provided, but it required a more complex pixel circuit of five transistors and a special pixel layout to get a good optical fill factor. The active area of the photodiode is 9 X 9 micrometers . These square diodes are arranged in a chess pattern, while the remaining space is used for the electronic circuit. FIll factor is nearly 50 percent. The sensor is embedded in a high-speed camera system with 16 ADCs, 256Mbyte dynamic RAM, FPGAs for high-speed real time image processing, and a PC for user interface, data archive and network operation. Fixed pattern noise, which is always a problem of CMOS sensor, and the mismatching of the 16 analog channels is removed by a pixelwise gain-offset correction. After this, the chess pattern requires a reconstruction of all the 'missing' pixels, which can be done by a special edge sensitive algorithm. So a high quality 512 X 256 image with low remaining noise can be displayed. Sensor, architecture and processing are also suitable for color imaging.

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Hans S. Bloss, Juergen D. Ernst, Heidrun Firla, Sybille C. Schmoelz, Stephan K. Gick, and Stefan C. Lauxtermann "High-speed camera based on a CMOS active pixel sensor", Proc. SPIE 3968, High-Speed Imaging and Sequence Analysis II, (29 February 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.378878

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