An ultra-low power CMOS image sensor with on-chip energy harvesting and power management capability is introduced in this paper. The photodiode pixel array can not only capture images but also harvest solar energy. As such, the CMOS image sensor chip is able to switch between imaging and harvesting modes towards self-power operation. Moreover, an on-chip maximum power point tracking (MPPT)-based power management system (PMS) is designed for the dual-mode image sensor to further improve the energy efficiency. A new isolated P-well energy harvesting and imaging (EHI) pixel with very high fill factor is introduced. Several ultra-low power design techniques such as reset and select boosting techniques have been utilized to maintain a wide pixel dynamic range. The chip was designed and fabricated in a 1.8 V, 1P6M 0.18 µm CMOS process. Total power consumption of the imager is 6.53 µW for a 96 × 96 pixel array with 1 V supply and 5 fps frame rate. Up to 30 μW of power could be generated by the new EHI pixels. The PMS is capable of providing 3× the power required during imaging mode with 50% efficiency allowing energy autonomous operation with a 72.5% duty cycle.
An ultra-low power CMOS image sensor is designed for endomicroscope applications. The chip will be fabricated through Global Foundries 0.18µm standard CMOS process with 1V power supply. The total power consumption is 6µW for 96×96 array with 5fps frame rate, where global amplifier consumes 3.3 µW, 10-bit SAR ADC consumes 900nW at 50kS/s, and on-chip digital processing further reduces IO power consumption down to 1.6µW.
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