A CMOS image sensor with programmable pixel-level analog processing

A prototype of a 34 /spl times/ 34 pixel image sensor, implementing real-time analog image processing, is presented. Edge detection, motion detection, image amplification, and dynamic-range boosting are executed at pixel level by means of a highly interconnected pixel architecture based on the absolute value of the difference among neighbor pixels. The analog operations are performed over a kernel of 3 /spl times/ 3 pixels. The square pixel, consisting of 30 transistors, has a pitch of 35 /spl mu/m with a fill-factor of 20%. The chip was fabricated in a 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS technology, and its power consumption is 6 mW with 3.3 V power supply. The device was fully characterized and achieves a dynamic range of 50 dB with a light power density of 150 nW/mm/sup 2/ and a frame rate of 30 frame/s. The measured fixed pattern noise corresponds to 1.1% of the saturation level. The sensor's dynamic range can be extended up to 96 dB using the double-sampling technique.