A 1/1.8-inch 6.4 MPixel 60 frames/s CMOS Image Sensor With Seamless Mode Change

A 1/1.8-inch 6.4 MPixel 60 frames/s CMOS image sensor fabricated in a 0.18-mum single-poly triple-metal (1P3M) process is described. A zigzag-shaped 1.75 T/pixel architecture and a 10-bit counter-type column parallel ADC enables 2.5times2.5 mum² pixels. The resulting pixel has 38% fill factor and 12ke-/lux.s sensibility. In addition, full frame and 2times2 binning modes are interchangeable without an extra invalid frame

I. Introduction

Compact digital cameras now require a high pixel count, high imaging performance, and low power consumption. Pixel size miniaturization is necessary to achieve a high pixel count in an adequate optical format. The trend graph for the frame rate is shown in Fig. 1. Although the number of pixels has been increased, image sensors have been able to read out all of the pixels at only a few frames per second.