ABSTRACT

Digital cameras have emerged in mainstream consumer applications and largely replaced traditional film cameras. In particular, these cameras are based upon integrating pixels with a dynamic range of 60 dB or less. Integrating logarithmic pixels have been fabricated using the Austria Microsystems 0.35 µm standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor logic process. The temporal response of the pixels can be improved using a reset operation, such as the one used in conventional pixels with a linear response but these modified pixels are still vulnerable to temporal noise. To overcome all these problems, an integrating pixel with a logarithmic response is proposed. The reset operation within a conventional integrating pixel creates a response time that is independent of the photocurrent. Integrating logarithmic pixels have the potential to capture details in wide dynamic range images of scenes containing motion without increasing the number of bits per pixel.