An image sensor of 1,000,000 fps, 300,000 pixels, and 144 consecutive frames

An image sensor for an ultra-high-speed video camera was developed. The maximum frame rate, the pixel count and the number of consecutive frames are 1,000,000 fps, 720 x 410 (= 295,200) pixels, and 144 frames. A micro lens array will be attached on the chip, which increases the fill factor to about 50%. In addition to the ultra-high-speed image capturing operation to store image signals in the in-situ storage area adjacent to each pixel, standard parallel readout operation at 1,000 fps for full frame readout is also introduced with sixteen readout taps, for which the image signals are transferred to and stored in a storage device with a large capacity equipped outside the sensor. The aspect ratio of the frame is about 16 : 9, which is equal to that of the HDTV format. Therefore, a video camera with four sensors of the ISIS-V4, which are arranged to form the Bayer’s color filter array, realizes an ultra-high-speed video camera of a semi-HDTV format.