ABSTRACT
Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors have been the subject of extensive development and share the market with charge coupled device (CCD) image sensors, which have dominated the field of imaging sensors for a long time. CMOS image sensors are fabricated based on standard CMOS large scale integration fabrication processes, while CCD image sensors are based on a specially developed fabrication process. There are three main categories for smart CMOS image sensors: pixel-level processing, chip-level processing or camera-on-a-chip, and column-level processing. In the early 1990s, advancement of CMOS technology made it possible to realize highly integrated CMOS image sensors or smart CMOS image sensors for machine vision. Column-parallel processing is suitable for CMOS image sensors, because the column lines are electrically independent of each other. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
