High-sensitivity high-dynamic digital CMOS imager

CMOS image sensors offer over the standard and ubiquitous charge-coupled devices several advantages, in terms of power consumption, miniaturization, on-chip integration of analog- to-digital converters and signal processing for dedicated functionality. Due to the typically higher readout noise of CMOS cameras compared to CCD cameras applications demanding ultimate sensitivity were so far not accessible to CMOS cameras. This paper present an analysis of major noise sources, concepts to reduce them, and results obtained ona single chip digital camera with a QCIF resolution of 144 by 176 pixels and a dynamic range in excess of 120 dB.