A colour 3200fps high-speed CMOS imager for endoscopy in bio-medical applications

A high-speed, high-sensitivity sensor was developed in a standard 0.5 /spl mu/m CMOS mixed-signal technology for the use in endoscopes. The full frame rate in excess of 3200 frames per second enables the imaging of transient events in biomedical samples. The sensor is organized as a 512/spl times/192 pixel array with additional RGB dye filters. Data are transferred from the sensor on either 4 or 8 analogue signal taps. The imager reaches a sensitivity of 130 V//spl mu/J.cm/sup -2/ at a wavelength of 470 nm with a dynamic range of 62 dB and 50.2 dB in linear mode and charge-skimming mode, respectively. The FPN, PRNU and temporal noise were measured to be at 0.7%, 1.1% and 0.08% of the full-scale output range of the sensor. This excellent performance is exploited in the analysis of high-speed transient phenomena of human vocal cords.