Prophesee S.A. and Sony collaborate on new design for event-based image sensor

Unveiled at the 2020 International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco in February, the new stacked event-based image sensor from Prophesee S.A. and Sony Corporation stacks a pixel chip on a logic chip to reduce sensor size without affecting performance.

The sensor features 4.86 µm pixel size, 1280 x 720 resolution, >124 dB dynamic range, and combines Sony’s stacked CMOS image sensor technology with Prophesee’s Metavision event-based vision sensing technology. Cu-Cu connections—copper pads that connect the back-illuminated CMOS image sensor top chip with the logic circuit bottom chip—make the stacked chip and compact design possible.

Placing only back-illuminated pixels and a part of N-type MOS transistor on the top chip made the sensor’s high dynamic range possible by allowing the aperture ratio to be enhanced by up to 77%. The new sensor can detect events in light as low as 40 mlx. An output rate of 1.0666 Geps (giga events per second) is made possible by event data compression.

Share your vision-related news by contacting Dennis Scimeca, Associate Editor, Vision Systems Design

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