Online Workshop: Introduction to CMOS Image Sensors
CIVIT organizes an online workshop called “Introduction to CMOS Image Sensors” together with Harvest Imaging on 11–12 May 2021. The workshop is organized in two half-day sessions on Zoom on Tuesday at 09:00–13:00, and on Wednesday at 09:00–13:00. Please note that we will stick to the original schedule (updated 11.05.2021).
The workshop provides an introduction to the latest image sensor technologies and processing techniques, delivered by one of the world’s leading technical experts, Prof. Albert Theuwissen. It is suitable for advanced Master’s and PHD students and professionals working on camera technologies.
Time and dates
- Tuesday 11.05.2021, 09:00–13:00 (EEST)
- Wednesday 12.05.2021, 09:00–13:00 (EEST)
Registration (closed)
Employees and students from Tampere Universities: please apply to the workshop by filling the registration form by 19.4.2021. We will inform you about the acceptance on 20.04.2021. The course is complimentary for employees and students from Tampere Universities. Please note that there are 50 seats available for participants from Tampere Universities, and a light preselection procedure will be applied.
Others: Please register by filling in the registration form by 24.04.2021. The registration fee is 100 EUR + 24% VAT for participants outside Tampere Universities.
Registration is now closed and we cannot accept any additional participants
Workshop topics:
- Introduction: General introduction to the course, introduction lecturer, introduction participants, course objectives, historic overview of solid-state image sensors, literature, conferences, periodicals, applications and links to specific websites
- Semiconductor Physics: A review of the semiconductors physics related to electrical conduction in silicon, Si doping with P and As : n-type silicon, Si doping with B : p-type silicon
- Photon Sensing: By means of a photogate or photodiode, readout by means of a CCD register or CMOS readline
- CMOS Imagers: Two-dimensional CMOS array with passive and active pixels, without ADC, with single ADC, with column level ADC and with pixel level ADC
- CMOS versus CCD: What are the major differences between both technologies? Cost, power consumption, functionality, image quality
- Optics: Brief overview of geometric optics: positive lens, negative lens, lens aberrations, field-of-view, depth-of-field, F-number, diffraction limit, lens MTF
- Electronic Shutter: Electronic charge reset or integration time shortening, rolling shutter versus global shutter, flickering, global shutter pixels with 4T, 5T, 6T and 7T, pipelined shuttering pixels, global shuttering in the charge and in the voltage domain
- Modulation Transfer Function: Geometrical MTF, Moire-effects, effect of the fill-factor on geometrical MTF, eye MTF, film MTF
- Colour Imaging: Why is colour imaging so difficult? Colour diagrams, colour imaging by means of a rotating filter wheel, by means of a colour prism, by means of silicon as colour splitter and by means of colour filters, stripe filters, mosaic filters, Bayer pattern, interpolation or demosaicing, colour matrixing, effects on sensor resolution
- Light Sources: Definition of radiometric and photometric units
- Noise: Definition of noise or kTC noise, reset noise, correlated-double sampling, 1/f noise, RTS noise, thermal noise, quantization noise, dark shot noise, transfer-gate noise, photon shot noise, dark fixed-pattern noise, light fixed-pattern noise, leakers, soft errors, hard errors, defects, perception of noise, transfer curve of an image, cosmetic defects, radiation damage
- Dynamic Range: Definition of dynamic range, influence of integration time, temperature and pixel frequency on dynamic range, wide-dynamic range pixels
- Noise as a Measurement Tool: Using the typical photon shot noise characteristics as a measurement tool for analyzing solid-state sensors or cameras, photon transfer curve, photon shot-noise method, mean-variance method, practical use of the photon shot noise method, noise as a diagnostic tool, photon transfer curve by means of multiple images, by means of 3 images, by means of 2 images and by means of a single image
- Increasing Light Sensitivity: How can the light sensitivity of an imager being increased: use of micro lenses and its limitations, optimization of the multi-layer structures, amorphous silicon top layers, back-side illumination, binning in the charge domain, in the voltage domain and in the digital domain, light pipes
- Analysis of Specifications: The data-sheets of 3 existing CMOS image sensors are analyzed and compared with each other
