A 250 mW, 60 frames/s 1280×720 pixel 9 b CMOS digital image sensor

Many imaging systems with industrial and machine vision applications now require sensors with a combination of >1 Mpixel revolution and >30 frames/s rate. This must be achieved at low cost and with minimum impact on system complexity or power consumption. Reported CCDs have this level of performance. However, the inherent analog nature of CCDs leads to a requirement for driving large external loads at high frequency from the image sensor. CMOS active pixel sensors (APS) are ideal for these applications due to the possibility for on-chip signal processing (especially analog-to digital converters [ADC]) integration and inherent low power consumption. This advantage is especially important in large-format high speed imaging applications. Other CMOS image sensors reported to date have either targeted small-format applications or are low frame rate devices. This 1280(H)x 720(V) CMOS APS capable of 60 frames/s operation includes on-chip, 10b, column-parallel, self-calibrating ADCs with 9b performance. Four 10b wide digital output ports support a data rate of 55.3 Mpixels/s. The sensor is in a standard 0.5/spl mu/m 2P2M technology and has power consumption <250 mW.