STMicroelectronics develops color microcamera

FEB 23--STMicroelectronics (ST; Geneva, Switzerland; www.st.com) has fabricated a 10 x 10 x 7.5-mm, digital, color microcamera for portable imaging devices that consumes 50 mW at 15 frames/s. It can capture both still and moving images using a common intermediate format (CIF) with a 352 x 288-pixel resolution or quarter CIF with 176 x 144-pixel resolution.

The ceramic multichip microcamera contains an ST CMOS-based ColourMOS sensor, a dedicated coprocessor, a low-profile lens assembly, and a 20-pin flex connector. This integrated assembly operates from a single 2.8-V supply and requires no assembly of optics.

Using an I2C interface, the microcamera can be configured to perform automatic gain control, automatic exposure control, automatic white balance, and automatic black/dark level calibration. It also can incorporate an automatic flicker-detection and correction scheme that allows the microcamera to function within 50- and 60-Hz voltage supplies without performance degradation.

The microcamera delivers an 8-bit Y-Cb-Cr digital video signal with optional CCIR Rec656 timing, programmable horizontal and vertical synchronization, and data qualification clock.