A Fault-Tolerant Active Pixel Sensor for Mitigating Hot Pixel Defects

Hot pixel defects are unavoidable in many solid-state image sensors. Affected pixels accumulate dark signal over the course of an exposure, grossly diminishing dynamic range and often rendering measurements unusable. Experiments suggest the mechanisms causing hot pixels are highly localized and the defect will be confined to a single pixel. A redundant, fault-tolerant active pixel sensor architecture that has previously been applied to other defect types is investigated for the suppression of hot pixels. A recovery scheme using minimal computational power is also described.