LARS II – A High Dynamic Range Image Sensor with a-Si : H Photo Conversion Layer

The rapidly growing market of industrial and automotive vision systems demands for image sensors with very high dynamic ranges of more than 100dB. State of the art linear imagers are not capable of delivering this signal range at standard video speeds while sensors with logarithmic signal compression suffer from high fixed pattern noise, low contrast and excessive temperature drift. The newly developed locally autoadaptive image sensor LARS II ( Lokal-AutoadaptiveR Sensor) with its 100.000 pixels is able to deliver 120dB with linear signals by splitting the total dynamic range into a time information and an integration signal. The LARS employs the TFA technology where the optical detector made of amorphous silicon is deposited on top of the CMOS ASIC, providing a fill factor of nearly 100%. Sample images taken with the LARS from scenes with high contrast show the power of the local autoadaptivity to cope with high dynamic ranges.