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Table of Contents
Light
Photons Color The Human Eye Color Mixing and Reproduction
Image Sensors
CMOS vs. CCD CMOS Imager Characteristics
Light
Visible light is the band of electromagnetic radiation that can be sensed by the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation is the type of energy, traveling in a wave that is produced by an oscillating charge or energy source. Electromagnetic ("EM") waves also include radio waves, x-rays and gamma rays. An electromagnetic wave can be defined by its wavelength (measure of length peak-to-peak) or its frequency (number of cycles per second). The multiplication of these two characteristics is a constant - the speed of light - so the two are inversely proportional to one another. That is, the shorter the wavelength, the faster the frequency, the longer the wavelength, the slower the frequency.
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Visible light is usually referred to in wavelength (instead of frequency) and includes wavelengths of 400 nanometers (10 -9 meters, abbreviated "nm") to 750 nm. Ultraviolet and infrared refer to the wavelengths just beyond the ends of the visible electromagnetic spectrum:
Wavelength Band ~10 -14 meters ~10 -9 meters (nanometer) ~10 -7 meters ~10 -6 meters ~10 -5 meters
Frequency (cycles per second) ~10 22 ~10 17 ~10 15 ~10 14 ~10 13 ~10 10 ~10 8 ~10 6 (megahertz) ~10 2
~10 -2 meter (centimeter) Short Wave Radio ~1 meter TV and FM Radio ~10 2 meters ~10 6 meters AM Radio Long Wave Radios
Measurements approximate. The product of the wavelength times the frequency equals 3x108 meters per second, the speed of light. Everyday usage of this chart is heard in the terms "short wave radio" and "900MHz cordless phone".
Photons
While light has properties of waves, the energy carried by light is not distributed in a wave, but carried in discrete bundles (or "quantized"), giving light some properties like particles. These light "particles" are called photons, and are referred to when explaining how light transfers energy and are used to explain how CMOS Imagers transfer light energy to electrical energy.
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Color
The Visible Light band in the EM spectrum can be broken down into a series of colors, each color corresponding to a different wavelength. The typical spectrum that is displayed is seven colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. In reality the band represents a continuum of colors, each corresponding to a different wavelength, but seven colors are historically displayed. The bands outside this region ultraviolet and infrared - are said to be beyond the range of the human eye, although in experiments both ultraviolet and infrared light can be seen unaided in certain conditions.
Visible Band
400nm
500nm
600nm
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that all the colors in the spectrum can be recreated from only a sub sample of only three other colors by mixing them in varying degrees. The fact that the whole range of colors may be synthesized from only three primary colors is essentially a description of the process by which the eye processes colors. This is a fortunate property of vision since it allows three colors to represent any of the 10,000 or more colors (and brightness) that may be distinguished by human vision. If this was not the case and vision was dependent on the energy and wavelength relationship of light described above, it is doubtful that color reproduction could be incorporated in any mass-communication system.
The three main ways to reproduce color are as follows: 1. Primary Colors - Red, Green, Blue or "RGB" - Most people remember this from their childhood art
classes. This is an "additive" method of adding the three primary colors in different amounts to recreate other colors, usually used in systems that project light. A mixture of these three primaries - red, green, and blue - may match any other color if their relative intensities are varied. White is made by adding ALL the colors (remember that "white light" represents the entire visible EM spectrum). The RGB scheme is used by televisions, computer monitors and other devices that project with light.
2. Complementary Colors - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or "CMY" - This method is "subtractive" and is
primarily used in printing since ink pigment "subtracts" the light falling on it. For example, a yellow pigment "absorbs" blue and violet light and "reflects" yellow (along with green and blue which together make more yellow). Since RGB is the best method for adding colors, then "negative red", or a pigment which absorbs the most red, "negative green", or a pigment which absorbs the most green, and "negative blue", which absorbs the most blue, are the best colors for subtracting. These colors, respectively, are Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. This method is used in inkjet printers and other methods that print (rather than project, which uses RGB). In practice, most inkjet printers not only use C, M, and Y ink, but also black ink since black, the combination of all the colors, would use up those inks very quickly. Since "B" already means "Blue", the last letter of the word "black" is used, meaning this method is referred to as "CMYk".
Subtractive filters are used in consumer cameras since they absorb less light. Professional cameras use additive filters since additive produces more accurate color.
3. YCRCB - Luminance, Chrominance (Red), Chrominance (Blue) - The third way to characterize light
makes use of the RGB concept above, but breaks down the color components in different fashion. Any color can be broken down into two qualities:
1. Luminance - Its brightness or intensity. Remember that the human eye that is more
sensitive to brightness than to color. The luminance value, stated with the letter "Y", is
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2. Chrominance - the color "remaining" once luminance is removed. This can be broken
down again into two independent qualities: Hue - This is the color of the light, in this case red or blue. Saturation - the relative purity, or the amount of white light mixed with a hue. High saturation colors contain little or no white light. The translation from RGB to YCRCB is done with a "look-up table" which takes any RGB value and matches it to its corresponding YCRCB components.
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No Red
Total Red
Each step in the arbitrary breakdown is called a "gray level" (even though the color is not gray). The same breakdown can be done for green and blue.
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By experiment, the naked eye can distinguish about 250 shades of each color. Using binary math, the closest binary number is 256, which is 28, gray levels can be used for each color. This means for each color component of a picture, there are 8-bits used for each R, G, B element, for a total of 24 bits of color representation. The complete R, G, breakdown of 224 colors represents about 16.7 million colors that can be represented digitally. The number of colors represented by a pixel is called its "tonal resolution" or its "color dynamic range". If fewer bits are used, the number of colors represented is smaller, so its dynamic range is smaller.
Image Sensors
Image sensors are devices that take an image and directly convert it to a digital image. Referred to in marketing literature as "silicon firm" or "silicon eyes", these devices are made of silicon since silicon has the properties of both being sensitive to light in the visible spectrum and being able to have circuitry integrated on-board. Silicon image sensors come in two broad classes: Charge-Coupled Devices (CCD) - Currently the most commonly used image sensor, CCDs capture light onto an array of light-sensitive diodes, each diode representing one pixel. For color imagers, each pixel is coated with a film of red, green, or blue (or complementary color scheme) so that each particular pixel captures that one particular color. The pixel, made up of a light sensitive diode, converts the light photon into a charge, and the value of that charge is moved to a single location in a manner similar to a row of people passing buckets of water. At the end, the charge is amplified. Since this "bucket brigade" is accomplished by applying different voltages to the pixels in a succession, the process is called charge-coupling. Because the value in the pixel is moved by applying different voltages, CCD sensors must be supported by several external voltage generators. In addition, CCDs require a specialized manufacturing process that cannot be used by any other device.
CMOS Imagers - Like CCDs, these imagers are made from silicon, but as the name implies, the process they are made in is called CMOS, which stands for Complementary
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Metal Oxide Semiconductor. This process is today the most common method of making processors and memories, meaning CMOS Imagers take advantage of the process and cost advancements created by these other high-volume devices. Like CCDs, CMOS imagers include an array of photo-sensitive diodes, one diode within each pixel. Unlike CCDs, however, each pixel in a CMOS imager has its own individual amplifier integrated inside. Since each pixel has its own amplifier, the pixel is referred to as an "active pixel". (note: There are also "passive pixel sensors" (pps) that do not contain this amplifier). In addition, each pixel in a CMOS imager can be read directly on an x-y coordinate system, rather than through the "bucket-brigade" process of a CCD. This means that while a CCD pixel always transfers a charge, a CMOS pixel always detects a photon directly, converts it to a voltage and transfers the information directly to the output. This fundamental difference in how information is read out of the imager, coupled with the manufacturing process, gives CMOS Imagers several advantages over CCDs.
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Reduced Power Consumption - because of all the external clocks needed to "bucket brigade" each pixel, CCDs are inherently power hungry. Every clock is essentially charging and discharging large capacitors in the CCD array. In contrast CMOS imagers require only a single voltage input and clock, meaning they consume much less power than CCDs, a feature that is critical for portable, battery operated devices. 2. Pixel Addressibility - CCDs use of the bucket brigade to transfer pixel values means that individual pixels in a CCD cannot be read individually. CMOS imagers on the other hand have the pixels in an x-y grid allowing pixels to be read individually. This means that CMOS imagers will be able to do functions such as "windowing", where only a small sample of the imager is read, image stabilization to remove jitters from camcorders, motion tracking and other advanced imaging techniques internally that CCDs cannot do. 3. Manufacturing Cost - Since CMOS imagers are manufactured in the same process as memories, processors and other high-volume devices, CMOS imagers can take advantage of process improvements and cost reductions these devices drive throughout the industry.
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There are a number of phrases and terms for describing the functional capability, physical features or competitive characteristics of an imager: Active Pixel Sensor (also APS) - As explained above, an active CMOS Imager pixel has its own amplifier for boosting the pixel's signal. Active Pixels are the dominant type of CMOS Imagers in the commercial market today. The other type of CMOS Imager, a passive pixel sensor (PPS), consists of only the photo detector without a local amplifier. While very sensitive to low light conditions, these types of sensors are not suitable for commercial applications due to their high amount of noise and poor picture quality when compared to active pixels. Fill Factor - The amount of a CMOS Pixel that is actually capturing light. In an active pixel, both the photo detector and the amplifier take up "real estate" in the pixel. The amplifier is not sensitive to light, so this part of the pixel area is lost when taking a picture.
The fill factor is simply the percentage of the area of the pixel that is sensitive to light. In the picture above, this is about 40%. As semiconductor process technologies get smaller and smaller, the amount of area taken up by the amplifier is taking up less space, so low fill factors are becoming less of an issue with active pixels. Note that in passive pixels where there is no amplifier at all - fill factors typically reach over 80%. The reason they do not reach 100% is due to routing and pixel selection circuitry that are also needed in a CMOS imager. Microlenses - In some pixel designs, the fill factor becomes too small to be effective. For example, if a fill factor in an imager were 25%, this would mean that 75% of the light falling on a pixel would be lost, reducing the pixel's capability. To get around this situation, some CMOS imagers have small lenses manufactured directly above the pixel to focus the light towards the active portion that would otherwise fall on the non-light sensitive portion of the pixel. Microlenses typically can increase the effective fill factor by two to three times.
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Color Filter Array (also CFA or just "color filter") - CMOS Pixels are sensitive to light photons but are not, by themselves, sensitive to color. Unaided, the pixels will capture any kind of light, creating a black and white image. In order to distinguish between colors, filters are put on top of a pixel to allow only certain colors to pass, turning the "rods" of the array into "cones". Since all colors can be broken down into an RGB or CMYk pattern, individual primary or complementary color schemes are deposited on top of the pixel array. After being read from the sensor, software takes the different values of the pattern and recombines the colors to match the original picture. There are a variety of different filters, the most popular being the Bayer Filter Pattern (also known as RGBG). Note the large amount of green in the pattern, due to the fact that the eye is most sensitive to color in the green part of the spectrum.
Noise - The same as static in a phone line or "snow" in a television picture, noise is any unwanted electrical signal that interferes with the image being read and transferred by the imager. There are two main types of noise associated with CMOS Sensors: 1. Read Noise (also called temporal noise) - This type of noise occurs randomly and is generated by the basic noise characteristics of electronic components. This type of noise looks like the "snow" on a bad TV reception. 2. Fixed Pattern Noise (also FPN) - This noise is a result of each pixel in an imager having its own amplifier. Even though the design of each amplifier is the same, when manufactured, these amplifiers may have slightly different offset and gain characteristics. This means for any picture given, if certain pixels are boosting the signal for every picture taken, they will create the same pattern again and again, hence the name.
Blooming - The situation where too many photons are being produced to be received by a pixel. The pixel overflows and causes the photons to go to adjacent pixels. Blooming is similar to overexposure in film photography, except that in digital imaging, the result is a
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number of vertical and/or horizontal streaks appearing from the light source in the picture. This photo illustrates two undesirable characteristics: blooming, the slight vertical line running from the top to the bottom of the picture and lens flare, the star shape light which is a function of the lens and not the imager.
Optical Format - is a number in inches that is calculated by taking the diagonal measurement of a sensor array in millimeters and dividing by 16. For example, a CMOS Imager that has a diagonal measurement of 4mm has an optical format of 4/16, or ". What Optical Format calculates is the type of lens system that must be used with the imager. In the lens industry, there are standard sets of ", ", ", etc. lens systems. By using Optical Format, a user of imagers can use standard, mass-produced (and inexpensive) lens systems rather than having to design and custom build a special lens system. The terms and measurement comes from the days of electron tubes and pre-dates solid-state electronics. Generally speaking, larger optics are more expensive, so a " lens system is less than a 1/3" lens system. Aspect Ratio - The ratio between the height and width of a sensor or display. It is found by dividing the vertical number of pixels (height) by the horizontal number of pixels (width) leaving it in fractional format. For example, a pixel with resolution of 640x480 would have an aspect ration of 480/640= . The most common aspect ratios are and 9/16. The aspect ratio is the ratio for computer monitors and TVs. The newer 9/16 aspect ratio is used for High Definition Television (HDTV) Quantum Efficiency (or QE) - Imagers create digital images by converting photon energy to electrical energy. The efficiency in which each photon is converted to an electron is the imager's quantum efficiency. The number is calculated by simply dividing electrons by photons, or E/P. If no electrons are created, the efficiency is obviously zero, while if each photon creates one electron the efficiency is 100%. Typically, a sensor has different efficiency at different light frequencies, so a graph of the quantum efficiency over the different wavelengths is typically shown: Dark Current - A situation in CMOS imagers where the pixels fill with thermally created electrons without any illumination. This problem is a function of the manufacturing process and layout and increases with increasing temperature.
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