A high dynamic range low power oscillating pixel for a bio-inspired sensor

Abstract

An ultra-low power biologically inspired pixel is presented in this paper. The pixel has been simulated and designed in 0.35μm CMOS technology and then successfully tested. The core oscillating pixel is a circuit that basically consists of only 5 transistors, potentially showing a reasonable pixel pitch. Thanks to the implemented light to frequency conversion, this pixel topology allows to realize a pulsed-based architecture for a bio-inspired camera. The digital output of the proposed circuit is demonstrated to be linearly proportional to the light impinging on the photodiode potentially performing a dynamic range of more than 120dB and showing a simulated power consumption of 470pJ/MHz per pixel.