ISSCC2015 (4)

Also this year Shizuoka University was present at the ISSCC with an imager paper.  Mochizuki presented a single-shot 200 Mfps 5×3 Aperture Compressive CMOS Imager.  The chip consists of 5 x 3 subarrays (multi-aperture), and each subarray has 64 x 108 pixels, each of 11.2 um x 5.6 um.  The chip is fabricated in 0.11 um CIS technology.  The 15 sub-arrays all receive the same image information, each sub-array has its own micro-lens.  But the difference between the 15 sub-arrays is the exposure time.  For each sub-array the exposure time is modulated/changed/scrambled in the time domain, such that all the different sub-arrays grab parts of the secenery but all in different and sometimes mixed time slots.  In this way, the information readout is a kind of compressed information in the time domain.  After solving/reconstructing, the 15 images shot at the same time (= NOT the same exposure time !) result in 32 different frames in the time domain.  Thus the sensor has an inherent compression of 47 %.

As many other papers of Shizuoka University, also this paper is relying on a clever pixel design around a PPD, with a lot of knowledge in the device physiscs field.  The paper described very nicely the principle of the compressed sensing, including simulation as well as measurement results.

Albert, 27-02-2015.

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