A Novel Image Sensor with Spatially Variant Flexible Sampling Control Integrated on a Focal Plane

Abstract

We propose a new spatially variant sampling control system integrated on an image sensor. This sensor can read out spatially variant pixels at high speed, without inputting pixel address for each access. Since it has a memory array that keeps the pixel position to be sampled, the sampling position can be dynamically changed by rewriting the memory array. It can achieve any spatially varying sampling patterns. We show the principles, circuit designs, a prototype of the sensor, and results obtained by the prototype.