Design and VLSI implementation of a new ASIC for colour measurement

The design and VLSI implementation of a new ASIC, which performs the conversion, in real time, of the R, G and B colour co-ordinates to the CIE standard L*, a* and b* colour coordinates, are presented. The rate of operation of this ASIC is 106.4 MIPS. The high-speed operation is achieved by pipelining the data in a vector fashion. The ASIC is implemented using a DLM, 1.0 µm, N-well, CMOS process provided by European Silicon Structures (ES2), and it occupies a silicon area of 6.30*6.45 mm=40.63 mm2. It is intended to be used in colorimetry instrumentation for colour measurement and control and in colour machine vision in autonomous applications such as robotics and military systems, where the need for short processing times is crucial.