Session 4 overview: Imagers

The session presents advances in image sensors covering the emerging topics of 3D stacking, organic photoconductive film, fluorescent imaging, global shutters and dynamic vision sensors. The first paper, by Samsung, presents a vision sensor that processes events group by group using a fully synthesized word-serial group address-event representation. Then, InSilixa presents an integrated biochip with a 32×32 fluorescence-based pixel array with integrated excitation filter and on-chip heater for real-time amplicon-probe hybridization detection. The next paper facilitates fluorescent lifetime imaging with multiple exponential decays using a 4-tap lock-in pixel and shared pulse generator. The University of Michigan presents a low-power single cell light-to-digital converter for monitoring accumulated light exposure for wearable applications. Canon presents a low-noise, wide-dynamic range, small-pixel-pitch global-shutter imager with dual-gain amplifiers. Sony presents a 3-layer stacked CMOS image sensor with a 1Gb DRAM used as a frame buffer for accumulating multiple frames to improve image quality, while reducing output data rate. Panasonic presents an organic-film stacked RGB-IR image sensor with controllable IR sensitivity. Shizuoka demonstrates high conversion gain in large pixels by replacing the traditional reset gate with a bootstrapping reset technique. Finally, a high-speed 3D stacked vision chip is presented, which includes line buffers and frame buffers for spatio-temporal image processing.