A close up look at global shutter technology

A new white paper from Aptina Imaging (San Jose, CA, USA) takes a detailed look at the global shutter technology typically found on charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors.

Traditionally, global shutter pixel technology has been primarily relegated to CCD image sensors. But as machine vision, industrial, automotive and scanning applications must be able to capture fast moving objects with high image quality, image sensor vendors have worked to overcome the hurdles traditionally associated with the use of the technology making it applicable to CMOS image sensors.

In doing so, these vendors can offer imagers with small pixel sizes, large fill factors, high Global Shutter Efficiency (GSE), low dark current and low noise, making the global shutter CMOS image sensors a viable alternative to CCD sensors for more applications.

In the white paper, an overview of the rolling shutter technology is provided after which the technical characteristics of devices that employ the technology are explained in a tutorial fashion.

The Aptina white paper can be found here.

-- by Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design