Applications of CMOS image sensors: state-of-the-art

Abstract

Applications of CMOS image sensors can be found nowadays in an incredibly large range of domains. In this paper we present a review of the main applications of these devices in the latest years, in domains like medicine, astronomy, automotive field, digital photography etc. We also highlight the capabilities of these CMOS sensors that constitute advantages over their competitors, the CCD sensors, and which imposed them for specific applications. Since the late 1960s when they appeared, CMOS image sensors have evolved a lot. Whereas in the beginning their performances could not be compared with those of the CCD image sensors, since the late 1990s CMOS sensors became real competitors of CCDs, both in industrial and scientific fields, due mainly to several important advantages, such as low power consumption, low voltage operation, high-speed imaging, low cost, integration capability etc. Prior work on CMOS image sensors reviewed mainly new types and structures, touching only tangentially the range of applications. Our paper proposes to partially fill this gap, presenting the most recent developments in a large area of domains of applications, providing the researcher with a quick reference for the state-of-art applications of CMOS image sensors. © 2012 SPIE.