Innovative COMS Image Sensor Design

Typical cell phone cameras record up to 240 frames per second, industry-standard high-speed imagers like phantom cameras can record a million frames per second. But with eight pixels tall when it is operating at high speed, which means standard 12 font will be 16 pixels tall. That limits the use of these cameras at very high speed. Our design uses communication theory, which is able to increase the data rate at high-speed operations.

Image sensor using communication theory is an emerging field in CMOS image sensor design. Our design will be exploring the potential, as well as limits of using it to build an image sensor chip, other method, such as wide dynamic range technology (WDRT) have equal potentials to be explored in the future.

Our project strictly followed design process of integrated circuits project, we built testbenches for each section, and present detailed technical specifications, after integration, we present waveforms and technical specifications for the product, if it attracts interests from industry, testing by FPGA will be conducted before it enters production.

Due to COVID, our access to equipment is limited, all the tests for this project are performed on Cadence Design Software, we are only able to present technical specifications of schematic-level and layout-level designs. More serious testing must be conducted before it enters the fabrication phase, unfortunately, we could not perform that in the online version of the capstone project this year, which will be handled by staff and researchers from at U of C.