A wide dynamic range CMOS image sensor with multiple short-time exposures

Author

Sasaki, Masaaki ; Mase, Mitsuhito ; Kawahito, Shoji ; Tadokoro, Yoshiaki

Author_Institution

Sendai Nat. Coll. of Technol., Japan

fYear

2004

fDate

24-27 Oct. 2004

Firstpage

967

Abstract

A wide dynamic range CMOS image sensor based on synthesis of long-time and multiple short-time exposure signals for high image quality in the whole illumination range is proposed. A key technique is a high-speed and high-resolution column-parallel integration type analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with nonlinear slope. A prototype wide dynamic range CMOS image sensor that captures a long-exposure and 3 short-exposure signals has been developed with 0.25 μm 1-poly 4-metal CMOS image sensor technology. The dynamic range is expanded by a factor of 120 compared with the case of the single long-time exposure. The ADC has a good linearity. The maximum DNL is 0.3 LSB and 0.6 LSB for single- and multi-resolution mode, respectively.

Keywords

CMOS image sensors; analogue-digital conversion; image resolution; 0.25 micron; CMOS image sensor; analog-to-digital converter; column-parallel integration; high-resolution ADC; high-speed ADC; illumination range; image quality; long-time exposure signals; multi-resolution mode; multiple short-time exposures; nonlinear slope; short-time exposure signals; single-resolution mode; wide dynamic range; CMOS image sensors; CMOS technology; Cameras; Dynamic range; Image sensors; Lighting; Noise level; Pixel; Prototypes; Signal to noise ratio;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Sensors, 2004. Proceedings of IEEE

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8692-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSENS.2004.1426333

Filename

1426333