A high performance linear current mode image sensor

A new linear current mode image sensor is proposed in this paper. The proposed circuit features high linearity, low power consumption, programmable multiple gain stages, wide input swing and correlated double sampling (CDS) technology. The signal swing of the linear current mode sensor is enhanced by the proposed multiple gain readout structure. A simple and accurate front-end programmable gain structure is proposed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with low power consumption. The function and performance has been verified by HSPICE simulation of 0.18 mum 3T sensor process.