title: An analog gamma correction scheme for high dynamic range CMOS logarithmic image sensors.
abstract: In this paper, a novel analog gamma correction scheme with a logarithmic image sensor dedicated to minimize the quantization noise of the high dynamic applications is presented. The proposed implementation exploits a non-linear voltage-controlled-oscillator (VCO) based analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to perform the gamma correction during the analog-to-digital conversion. As a result, the quantization noise does not increase while the same high dynamic range of logarithmic image sensor is preserved. Moreover, by combining the gamma correction with the analog-to-digital conversion, the silicon area and overall power consumption can be greatly reduced. The proposed gamma correction scheme is validated by the reported simulation results and the experimental results measured for our designed test structure, which is fabricated with 0.35 μm standard complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process.
authors.affiliation: College of Electronic Science and Technology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China. caoyuan0908@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China. xpan@ust.hk.
authors.forename: Xiaofang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: College of Electronic Science and Technology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China. eexjzhao@szu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xiaojin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: College of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China. hswu@szu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Huisi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu