• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.341-346
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• 2006

We have fabricated SOI CMOS active pixel image sensor with the pinned photodiode on handle wafer in order to reduce dark currents and improve spectral response. The structure of the active pixel image sensor is 4 transistors APS which consists of a reset and source follower transistor on seed wafer, and is comprised of the photodiode, transfer gate, and floating diffusion on handle wafer. The source of dark current caused by the interface traps located on the surface of a photodiode is able to be eliminated, as we apply the pinned photodiode. The source of dark currents between shallow trench isolation and the depletion region of a photodiode can be also eliminated by the planner process of the hybrid bulk/SOI structure. The photodiode could be optimized for better spectral response because the process of a photodiode on handle wafer is independent of that of transistors on seed wafer. The dark current was about 6 pA at 3.3 V of floating diffusion voltage in the case of transfer gate TX = 0 V and TX=3.3 V, respectively. The spectral response of the pinned photodiode was observed flat in the wavelength range from green to red.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.1497-1502
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• 2009

AE(Auto exposure) is a function to maintain the exposure value of a captured image constant, and is one of the crucial functionalities of a CIS-based mobile camera. Generally AE is implemented in software, requiring a CPU and a ROM to store the corresponding software. This approach increases the hardware size at the cost of increased flexibility. In this paper, we propose an AE algorithm featuring variable frame-rate and adaptive analog gain control, as well as a FSM-based hardware architecture for a CIS-based mobile camera.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.43 no.4 s.310
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• pp.9-18
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• 2006

In the digital camera system, CMOS image sensor (CIS) is widely used because its size and weight become smaller and power consumption becomes lower. However, there are common problems that colors of the recorded image do not match those of the photographed object and that spectral sensitivity of the CIS used in different cameras varies largely in each case. Therefore, color correction is needed because the spectral sensitivity of the CIS in each color is neither the same color component for most standard colors nor the appropriate color representation for any output devices. In the conventional method, a color correction is empirically obtained by a large number of iterative experiments, but the result is not so satisfied. In this paper, a new method to obtain the efficient color correction matrix for digital camera using CIS is proposed. We obtain camera transfer matrix under the certain white-balance point, and color correction matrix that makes the transfer characteristic of digital camera close to the transfer characteristic of ideal camera is obtained. The experimental results show that the transfer characteristic of digital camera by the proposed method is close to that of the ideal camera. In addition, the image quality of pictures of digital camera using the proposed method is dramatically improved.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.727-730
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• 2005

최근 로봇에 대한 연구가 활발히 진행되면서 로봇이 움직이면서 필요한 거리정보를 얻기 위한 여러 가지 3D Sensing 알고리즘이 제시되었다. 그 중 하나인 HOC(hierarchical orthogonal code) 알고리즘 이용하면서 실시간성 및 모듈화를 위해 CIS(CMOS Image Sensor), FPGA 를 이용하여 구현 하였다.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.189-192
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• 2009

The leakage current in a CMOS image sensor (CIS) can have various origins. Leakage current investigations have focused on such things as cobalt-salicide, source and drain scheme, and shallow trench isolation (STI) profile. However, there have been few papers examining the effects on leakage current of nitride stringers that are formed by gate sidewall etching. So this study reports the results of a series of experiments on the effects of a nitride stringer on real display images. Different step heights were fabricated during a STI chemical mechanical polishing process to form different nitride stringer sizes, arsenic and boron were implanted in each fabricated photodiode, and the doping density profiles were analyzed. Electrons that moved onto the silicon surface caused the dark leakage current, which in turn brought up the speckle defect on the display image in the CIS.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.149-156
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• 2013

This paper presents a hardware edge detector of image signal at pixel level of CMOS image sensor (CIS). The circuit detects edges of an image based on a bump circuit combining with the pixels. The APS converts light into electrical signals and the bump circuit compares the brightness between the target pixel and its neighbor pixels. Each column on CIS 64 by 64 pixels array shares a comparator. The comparator decides a peak level of the target pixel comparing with a reference voltage. The proposed edge detector is implemented using 0.18um CMOS technology. The circuit shows higher fill factor 34% and power dissipation by 0.9uW per pixel at 1.8V supply.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.445-452
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• 2010

In this paper, an attempt has been made to design the controller applicable for H.264 level3 encoder of baseline profile on full hardware basis. The designed controller module first stores the images supplied from CMOS Image Sensor(CIS) at main memory, and then reads or stores the image data in macroblock unit according to encoder operation. The timing cycle of the DMA controller required to process a macroblock is 478 cycles. In order to verify the our design, reference-C encoder, which is compatible to JM 9.4, is developed and the designed controller is verified by using the test vector generated from the reference C code. The number of cycle in the designed DMA controller is reduced by 40% compared with the cycle of using Xilinx MIG.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.12-19
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• 2009

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.641-650
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• 2010

Color image sensors (CIS) output color images through image sensors and image signal processing. Image sensors that convert light to electrical signal are divided into CMOS image sensor and CCD image sensor according to transferring method of signal charge. In general, a CIS has RGB output signals from tri-stimulus XYZ of the scene through image signal processing. This paper presents an adaptive colorimetric analysis method to obtain chromaticity and luminance using CIS under various environments. An image sensor for the use of colorimeter is characterized based on the CIE standard colorimetric observer. We use the method of least squares to derive a colorimetric characterization matrix between camera RGB output signals and CIE XYZ tristimulus values. We first survey the camera characterization in the standard environment then derive a SGL(shutter-gain-level) function which is relationship between luminance and auto exposure (AE) characteristic of CIS, and read the status of an AWB(auto white balance) function. Then we can apply CIS to measure luminance and chromaticity from camera outputs and AE resister values without any preprocessing. Camera RGB outputs, register values, and camera photoelectric characteristic are used to analyze the colorimetric results for real scenes such as chromaticity and luminance. Experimental results show that the proposed method is valid in the measuring performance. The proposed method can apply to various fields like surveillant systems of the display or security systems.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2008

When designing image sensors including a CMOS vision chip for edge detection, resolution is a significant factor to evaluate the performance. It is hard to improve the resolution of a bio-inspired CMOS vision using a resistive network because the vision chip contains many circuits such as a resistive network and several signal processing circuits as well as photocircuits of general image sensors such as CMOS image sensor (CIS). Low resolution restricts the use of the application systems. In this paper, we improve the resolution through layout and circuit optimization. Furthermore, we have designed a printed circuit board using FPGA which controls the vision chip. The vision chip for edge detection has been designed and fabricated by using $0.35{\mu}m$ double-poly four-metal CMOS technology, and its output characteristics have been investigated.