A CMOS Image Sensor Pixel Combining Deep Sub-Electron Noise With Wide Dynamic Range

Boukhayma, Assim; Caizzone, Antonino; Enz, Christian

doi:10.1109/led.2020.2988378

Cited by 13 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(12 reference statements)

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“…Nevertheless, sub-electron noise CIS chips are hard to find on the market. Recently, remarkably low noise pixels, operating at room temperature, have been presented [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] reaching noise levels below a single electron. These improvements have been followed by demonstrations of photo-electron counting capability with CMOS image sensors without any photoelectron multiplication process [4] [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparison of Two in Pixel Source Follower Schemes for Deep Subelectron Noise CMOS Image Sensors

Boukhayma

Kraxner²,

Caizzone

et al. 2022

IEEE J. Electron Devices Soc.

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This paper compares two in-pixel source follower stage designs for low noise CMOS image sensors embedded both on a same 5 mm by 5 mm chip fabricated in a 180 nm CIS process. The presented chip embeds two pixel variants, one based on a body-effect-canceled thin oxide PMOS and the other embeds a native thick oxide NMOS. On the other hand they share the same sense node, same amplification circuit and 11 bit single slope analog to digital converter (SS-ADC). The imager characterization demonstrates a histogram peak noise of 0.34 e − RMS with the PMOS SF pixel and 0.47 e − RMS with the NMOS SF at maximum analog gain. This performance is obtained at room temperature and 119 frame per second. Both pixel variants demonstrate a full well capacity over 5600 electrons.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…e-mail: assim.boukhayma@senbiosys.com. capacitance reduction [8] [4] [9] [6] [7]. This SN capacitance reduction comes either at the cost of a low full well capacity, necessity of high voltage operation, or increased design complexity and process refinement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Two in Pixel Source Follower Schemes for Deep Subelectron Noise CMOS Image Sensors

Boukhayma

Kraxner²,

Caizzone

et al. 2022

IEEE J. Electron Devices Soc.

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“…In recent years, the noise performance of CMOS image sensors (CIS) has been improved to reach deep sub-electron level (<0.5e-rms) [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Some of the pixels in a deep sub-electron CIS achieve photon counting capability [1][2] [4] [5]. A small floating diffusion (FD) node capacitance is necessary for these source-follower (SF) based CIS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In [8], instead of reducing the FD node capacitance, a Gm amplifier and sampling capacitor constitute a sinc-type low-pass filter to improve the noise. However, the CG is fixed in [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] due to the principle of voltage domain sampling, which means the dynamic range and maximum SNR of the single frame are fixed and this solution is only suitable for the particular applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Deep Subelectron Temporal Noise CMOS Image Sensor With Adjustable Sinc-Type Filter to Achieve Photon-Counting Capability

Han

Theuwissen

2021

IEEE Solid-State Circuits Lett.

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This letter introduces a Gm-cell based CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) achieving deep sub-electron noise performance. The CIS presents a new compensation block and low noise current source to improve the performance of Gm pixel. Furthermore, an optional 1st order IIR filter is implemented to improve the output swing. The conversion gain, full well capacity and dynamic range of the CIS can be easily adjusted by the charging time and the filter mode for different applications. The prototype chip is fabricated in a standard 180nm CIS process, and has a deep sub-electron read noise of 0.31e-rms at minimum (of the noise distribution) and 0.42e-rms at peak (of the noise distribution). A smooth and clear photon counting histogram is observed.

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“…With advancements in optical sensing, high dynamic range (HDR) sensors that can capture the entire luminance range of a real-world scene have been developed [ 2 ]. For example, some latest high-end digital single-lens reflex cameras, or some devised sensors including multiple sensor elements with different exposure levels, are able to capture entire details of both dark and bright parts of the scene simultaneously.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Photographic Reproduction Method Based on Feature Fusion and Virtual Combined Histogram Equalization

Lin

Hua

Chen

et al. 2021

Sensors

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A desirable photographic reproduction method should have the ability to compress high-dynamic-range images to low-dynamic-range displays that faithfully preserve all visual information. However, during the compression process, most reproduction methods face challenges in striking a balance between maintaining global contrast and retaining majority of local details in a real-world scene. To address this problem, this study proposes a new photographic reproduction method that can smoothly take global and local features into account. First, a highlight/shadow region detection scheme is used to obtain prior information to generate a weight map. Second, a mutually hybrid histogram analysis is performed to extract global/local features in parallel. Third, we propose a feature fusion scheme to construct the virtual combined histogram, which is achieved by adaptively fusing global/local features through the use of Gaussian mixtures according to the weight map. Finally, the virtual combined histogram is used to formulate the pixel-wise mapping function. As both global and local features are simultaneously considered, the output image has a natural and visually pleasing appearance. The experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method and the superiority over other seven state-of-the-art methods.

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A CMOS Image Sensor Pixel Combining Deep Sub-Electron Noise With Wide Dynamic Range

Cited by 13 publications

References 9 publications

Comparison of Two in Pixel Source Follower Schemes for Deep Subelectron Noise CMOS Image Sensors

Comparison of Two in Pixel Source Follower Schemes for Deep Subelectron Noise CMOS Image Sensors

A Deep Subelectron Temporal Noise CMOS Image Sensor With Adjustable Sinc-Type Filter to Achieve Photon-Counting Capability

A New Photographic Reproduction Method Based on Feature Fusion and Virtual Combined Histogram Equalization

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