SystemC AMS behavioral modeling of a CMOS video sensor

This work presents an approach for modeling a CMOS image sensor (CIS) by using the SystemC AMS analog and mixed-signal extension to the SystemC hardware description language 1666 IEEE standard. The advantage of developing such a model resides in the possibility of performing an early validation of the response of the image sensor to the input light. The parameterized model can model many optical and electrical effects at a high level of abstraction. The sensor response to the light and to its control signals can be rapidly simulated for checking the compliancy to the sensor specifications. SystemC AMS can model complex heterogeneous systems at different levels of abstraction using different models of computation (MoCs). The model uses the timed data flow (TDF) MoC of SystemC AMS. Simulation results are shown and future works are forecasted to enrich the accuracy of the sensor model by adding noise sources and non-linearities. The overall image acquisition platform will then be, in a near future, validated by integrating the SystemC AMS model inside a SystemC TLM virtual platform.