A single-chip 306×244-pixel CMOS NTSC video camera

Abstract

Recently, a technological alternative to CCD in the form of cameras using sensors built from standard CMOS processes has appeared, and we report here a further milestone. A single-chip NTSC video camera can be partitioned into analog (custom) and digital (cell-based) sections. The sensing heart of the device is an array of 306/spl times/244 photosensitive elements, each comprising a three-transistor active pixel based on a standard CMOS n +/p-well photodiode. Photocharge integrated in the pixel during exposure is read row-sequentially into a column structure that removes the systematic offset of each pixel by a read sequence with correlated double sampling.