<p>The introduction of the digital image sensor has triggered a revolution in the field of imaging. It has not only just replaced the conventional silver halide film based imaging system, but has also enormously widened the scope of imaging applications. Previously, charge-coupled devices (CCDs) were the most popular technology for image sensors. But in the past decade, they have been rapidly replaced by the CMOS image sensor (CIS) technology. The CCD image sensors offers higher sensitivity, wider dynamic range and better resolution compared to its CMOS imager counterparts. However, the lower power performance, higher speed of operation, easier integration with signal control and processing circuitries, and the use well-established mainstream fabrication process of CMOS technology, are key advantages that have served to propel CMOS imagers beyond CCDs in the market.</p> <p>However, CIS suffers from higher temporal noise compared to that of CCDs. One of the major noise sources in CIS is the 1/ noise generated from the in-pixel active amplifier. Due to continuous shrinking of MOS devices, the random telegraph signal (RTS) noise is emerging as a dominant noise source over other low frequency noise in CMOS imagers, resulting into reduced imaging performance.</p> <p>The RTS noise which evolves from trapping and de-trapping of electrons by the defects in the oxide, causes fluctuation in the drain current of the MOSFET. In this work, we have carried out time-domain measurement of RTS noise in CIS pixels. The time domain RTS measurements provide useful information about its characteristics in different operating conditions, which can be further used to extract the trap parameters and determine the optimum settings of operation of CIS.</p> <p>The capability of integrating various on-chip operations, higher speed and lower fabrication cost has made the CIS a good choice for various imaging applications. In order to demonstrate the extent of possible applications of CIS, we have developed an imaging system using a CIS. Two major concerns of biomedical imaging systems are their speed and cost. The system presented here is implemented using a CIS and FPGA (field programmable gate array) that provides a low-cost and high frame rate solution for biomedical microscopy.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

This Master’s thesis work is about the conditions that can affect the identification of defects in lithium-ion batteries. In lithium batteries, there are cathode and anode, which are separated with electrically insulative but ionically conductive electrolytes and separators. The cathode consists of aluminum foil, and the anode consists of copper foil. During the production of the batteries, these foils are being coated with active materials. Unfortunately, some defects such as scratches, misshape, marks, or spots can occur during the coating, and these defects harm the batteries’ performance. To ensure a good performance of the batteries, these defects have to be detected and identified. Today, these defects can be detected with a camera that scans the foils. To detect all the defects, even smaller marks, and dots, a new high-resolution sensor was investigated. The new sensor called Contact Image Sensor that acquires the raw information of the light and converts it into electrical signals was used. In other words, all the objects reflect the light, and the Contact Image Sensor captures the reflected light from the objects. By investigating the light, illumination time, and the contrast of the objects, it is possible to make the defects more visible. Furthermore, this thesis covers the speed of the coated foils passing the sensor. Since the production of the batteries should be time and cost-efficient, the speed can be high, but the sensor should have enough time to scan clear images. In this Master’s thesis work the implications of different sensor resolutions and contrast settings in a roll-to-roll process were studied, considering the speed of the process vs identifying defects (such as scratches and misshapes). It has also been studied if the light conditions, under normal circumstances, have a substantial impact on this trade-off. The result has been promising. Since the sensor has an internal resolution, a limited scanning area, and a scanning frequency, the speed will be limited by a maximum illumination time. But as long as the illumination time is under the maximum, the speed, in this case, does not matter. The maximum illumination time is different for different speeds. Furthermore, the results clearly show that high resolution, maximum allowed illumination time for each speed, and lower speeds, provide the best conditions for finding and identifying defects. However, there comes a price for the illuminated foil. The price is that the bright light can lead to overexposed foil, i.e., the part of the foil without coating will be exposed to too much light. This can create problems if damage to the foil is to be identified. Therefore, a more nuanced light that balances the contrast of the coating part and the foil is recommended. / Det här masterexamensarbetet handlar om förhållanden som påverkar identifieringen av defekter i litiumjonbatterier. Litiumbatterier består av katod och anod som separeras av elektriskt isolerande men joniskt ledande elektrolyt och separatorer. Katoden består av aluminiumfolie och anoden består av kopparfolie. Under tillverkningen av batterierna beläggs dessa folier med aktiva material. Tyvärr uppstår det ibland skador i beläggningen så som repor, missbildning, märke eller fläckar. Dessa defekter försämrar batteriets prestanda. För att säkerställa att batterierna fungerar felfritt måste dessa defekter upptäckas och elimineras. Idag används kamera som skannar folierna för att hitta defekter. För att upptäcka samtliga skador, bland annat mindre märken och fläckar, övervägs en ny högupplöst sensor. En ny sensor, så kallad Contact Image Sensor, som tar in ljuset och omvandlar det till elektriska signaler undersöks. Med andra ord fångar Contact Image Sensor det reflekterade ljuset från objekten. Genom att undersöka ljusets styrka, belysningstiden och kontrast är det möjligt att göra defekterna mer synliga. Vidare omfattar detta examensarbete hastigheten hos de folierna som passerar sensorn. Under en tids- och kostnadseffektiv produktion av batterier kan hastigheter av foljer vara höga, men sensorn måste ha tillräcklig tid och utrymme att skanna tydliga bilder. Påföljden av olika sensorupplösningar och kontrastinställningar i en roll-to-roll-process har därför studerats i detta examensarbete med hänsyn taget till processens hastighet kontra identifieringen av defekter (såsom repor och missbildningar). Det har också studerats om ljusförhållandena har, under normala omständigheter, en väsentlig inverkan på denna avvägning. Resultatet har varit lovande. Med anledning av sensorns interna upplösning, dess begränsade skanningsområdet, samt skanningsfrekvensen, kommer hastigheten att begränsas av en maximal belysningstid. Men så länge belysningstiden är under maximalt kommer hastigheten inte ha någon betydelse. Denna maximala belysningstid är olika för olika hastigheter. Vidare framgår det tydligt i resultatet att hög upplösning, maximal tillåtna belysningstiden för respektive hastighet, och lägre hastigheter, ger bästa förutsättningar för att hitta och identifiera defekter. Dock kommer ett pris för det upplysta beläggningen av foljen. Priset är att det ljusa ljuset kan leda till överexponerade folje, dvs där den delen av foljen som saknar beläggning utsätts för mycket ljus och kan bländas. Detta kan skapa problem om skador på foljen ska identifieras. En mer nyanserad ljus som balanserar kontrasten av beläggningen och foljen kan därför rekommenderas.

Noise in electronic circuits can sometimes cause problems. It is especially problematic in for example high sensitive sensors and high end audio and video equipment. In audio and video equipment the noise will make its way into the sound and picture reducing the overall quality. Sensors that are constructed to sense extremely small changes can only pick up changes larger than the noise floor of the circuit. By lowering the noise, sensors can achieve higher accuracy.  This thesis presents an ultra low noise solution of the biasing circuitry to the bolometer used in one of FLIR Systems high end cameras. The bolometer uses different adjustable direct current voltage sources and is extremely sensitive to noise. The purpose is to improve the picture quality and the thermal measurement resolution. A prototype circuit was constructed and in the end of the thesis a final circuit with successful result will be presented.

Since the birth of charge coupled devices (CCD) and the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) active pixel sensors, pixel pitch of digital image sensors has been continuously shrinking to meet the resolution and size requirements of the cameras. However, shrinking pixels reduces the maximum number of photons a sensor can hold, a phenomenon broadly known as the full-well capacity limit. The drop in full-well capacity causes drop in signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range.<div><br></div><div>The Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) is a class of solid-state image sensors proposed by Eric Fossum in 2005 as a potential solution for the limited full-well capacity problem. QIS is envisioned to be the next generation image sensor after CCD and CMOS since it enables sub-diffraction-limit pixels without the inherited problems of pixel shrinking. Equipped with a massive number of detectors that have single-photon sensitivity, the sensor counts the incoming photons and triggers a binary response “1” if the photon count exceeds a threshold, or “0” otherwise. To acquire an image, the sensor oversamples the space and time to generate a sequence of binary bit maps. Because of this binary sensing mechanism, the full-well capacity, signal-to-noise ratio and the dynamic range can all be improved using an appropriate image reconstruction algorithm. The contribution of this thesis is to address three image processing problems in QIS: 1) Image reconstruction, 2) Threshold design and 3) Color filter array design.</div><div><br></div><div>Part 1 of the thesis focuses on reconstructing the latent grayscale image from the QIS binary measurements. Image reconstruction is a necessary step for QIS because the raw binary measurements are not images. Previous methods in the literature use iterative algorithms which are computationally expensive. By modeling the QIS binary measurements as quantized Poisson random variables, a new non-iterative image reconstruction method based on the Transform-Denoise framework is proposed. Experimental results show that the new method produces better quality images while requiring less computing time.</div><div><br></div><div>Part 2 of the thesis considers the threshold design problem of a QIS. A spatially-varying threshold can significantly improve the reconstruction quality and the dynamic range. However, no known method of how to achieve this can be found in the literature. The theoretical analysis of this part shows that the optimal threshold should match with the underlying pixel intensity. In addition, the analysis proves the existence of a set of thresholds around the optimal threshold that give asymptotically unbiased reconstructions. The asymptotic unbiasedness has a phase transition behavior. A new threshold update scheme based on this idea is proposed. Experimentally, the new method can provide good estimates of the thresholds with less computing budget compared to existing methods.</div><div><br></div><div>Part 3 of the thesis extends QIS capabilities to color imaging by studying how a color filter array should be designed. Because of the small pixel pitch of QIS, crosstalk between neighboring pixels is inevitable and should be considered when designing the color filter arrays. However, optimizing the light efficiency while suppressing aliasing and crosstalk in a color filter array are conflicting tasks. A new optimization framework is proposed to solve the problem. The new framework unifies several mainstream design criteria while offering generality and flexibility. Extensive experimental comparisons demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework.</div>

De nos jours, les caméras sont de plus en plus utilisées lors de missions spatiales ou en centrale nucléaire pour des missions d'observations (civiles ou militaires) et de surveillance (vérification du déploiement de panneaux solaires, opérations extravéhiculaires, accident nucléaire, site de stockage). L'environnement spatial, les réacteurs civils nucléaires ou les lieux de stockage de déchets radioactifs sont des milieux radiatifs qui peuvent très fortement perturber les composants électroniques et les systèmes. Dans ces environnements, les rayonnements ionisants dégradent les paramètres électriques des composants électroniques. La dose totale ionisante conduit à l'apparition d'un nombre significatif de charges dans les oxydes des matériaux constituant les composants électroniques, modifiant leurs propriétés électriques. Il en résulte qu'une exposition à la dose totale ionisante peut entraîner une défaillance partielle ou totale d'un composant voire d'un système électronique embarqué.Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous proposons une méthode de régénération pour guérir les paramètres électriques dégradés par la dose totale ionisante de composants électroniques soumis aux rayonnements ionisants. Cette méthode consiste à appliquer des cycles de recuit isothermes à un composant électronique. Dans un premier temps, cette méthode est appliquée sur des transistors MOS, et une étude est menée sur l'impact des différents paramètres clés du recuit (polarisation, température, durée de recuit, pas en dose entre chaque recuit). Dans un second temps, nous nous intéressons à des composants plus intégrés et plus récents tels que des capteurs d'images de type CMOS APS. Nous montrons expérimentalement l'impact d'un recuit sur ce type de composant et enfin, nous adaptons la méthode de régénération pour l'appliquer à ces capteurs APS afin d'augmenter leur durée de vie. / Nowadays, cameras are more and more used in space missions or nuclear plant for observation (civil or military) and monitoring missions (checking the deployment of solar panels, extravehicular operations, nuclear accident, and area storage). The space environment, nuclear reactors or radioactive waste storage areas are radiative environments that can greatly disturb electronic components and systems. In these environments, ionizing radiation degrades the electrical parameters of electronic components. The total ionizing dose induces significant charge build-up in oxides, degrading the electrical properties of the materials of electronic devices. That can result in the loss of functionality of the entire electronic system.In this thesis, we propose a regeneration method to recover the electrical parameters degraded by total ionizing dose of electronic components subjected to ionizing radiation. In this method isothermal annealing cycles are applied to electronic devices. In a first step, this method is applied on MOS transistors, and a study is conducted on the impact of various key parameters of annealing (bias, annealing temperature, annealing time, dose step between each annealing). In a second step, we focus on components more integrated and newer such as CMOS APS image sensors. We experiment what is the impact of annealing on this type of component and finally, the regeneration method is modified to be suitable on these APS sensors to increase their lifetime.

On assiste aujourd’hui au développement massif des technologies nomades. L’utilisation de boîtiers compacts est ainsi en plein croissance, non seulement à cause des téléphones portables et tablettes, mais aussi à cause de l’introduction massive de l’électronique dans les appareils portables de la vie quotidienne. La microélectronique embarquée dans ces appareils représente le principal outil d’information et de communication des personnes avec le monde extérieur. Le rythme de développement de ces technologies dans les dernières années est tel que les possibilités d’utilisation des appareils portables d’aujourd’hui étaient de la science-fiction il y a seulement 10 ans.Les fonctionnalités qui verront le jour dans les années à venir ne peuvent donc pas toutes être encore imaginées. Ces fonctionnalités vont toutefois très certainement impliquer une augmentation des performances de calcul des dispositifs, et par conséquent de la chaleur qu’ils dissipent.Aujourd’hui, on envisage des puces complexes comprenant plusieurs niveaux logiques et basées sur technologies hétérogènes. On demande également que ces technologies soient intégrées dans les appareils utilisés dans la vie quotidienne, qu’ils soient connectés entre eux et qu’ils réagissent de façon intelligente. Les stratégies de dissipation de la chaleur doivent donc être en adéquation avec la réduction des dimensions des dispositifs de la microélectronique.L’objectif de la thèse présentée dans ce manuscrit est ainsi d’étudier les stratégies de dissipation thermique des boîtiers compacts avec l’aide de répartiteurs de chaleur intégrés. Ce travail porte sur la caractérisation des performances et contraintes des répartiteurs thermiques avec matériaux carbonés. Les répartiteurs sont capables de dissiper sur sa surface la chaleur produite dans un point chaud.Afin d’étudier le phénomène de la dissipation avec un répartiteur, on a mis en place une méthodologie qui prend en compte le caractère multiniveau de la dissipation thermique. L’objectif est de pouvoir se concentrer sur l’interaction entre le répartiteur thermique et chacun des éléments de l’ensemble. On a réutilisé deux véhicules de test et on a désigné un véhicule de test spécifique pour l’étude de la thermique des puces imageurs.Les travaux sont basés sur deux axes : Les études d’intégration et les études thermiques. Les études d’intégration prennent en compte les contraintes dérivées de l’implémentation des couches répartiteurs dans des boitiers compactes. On se concentre d’abord sur les procès d’implémentation des couches répartiteurs au sein de l’ensemble dans un procès industriel. Ensuite on étudie les effets thermomécaniques et les effets sur l’intégrité des signaux à haute fréquence.Les études thermiques caractérisent le gain en performances dérivé de cette intégration. On analyse ces phénomènes thermiques avec des mesures et des simulations. Premièrement au niveau silicium et répartiteur, deuxièmement au niveau boitier et finalement on se concentre sur les effets dans une puce et boitier imageur.A la lumière des résultats on peut dire que les matériaux carbonés se présentent comme l’alternative plus intéressante pour l’implémentation à grande échelle de répartiteurs dans des boitiers compacts. Cette implémentation sera poussée par la recherche des prestations dans des boitiers de plus en plus complexes et hétérogènes, ou l’empreinte du répartiteur doit être minimale. La combination des couches de carbone a tous les niveaux du boitier, avec des TIMs des épaisseurs réduites sera la tendance dans les années à venir pour ce type de dispositifs.Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une collaboration tripartie entre le CEA-LETI de Grenoble, le laboratoire G2Elab de l’INP Grenoble et STMicroelectronics à Crolles. / We witness today an explosion of nomadic technologies. Portable devices have become the main tool that people use to connect with the rest of the world. The microelectronics embedded in these devices is the technology that drives this process. The pace of development of these technologies is such that the versatility of portable devices today were science fiction only 10 years ago.The functionalities that will be integrated in the coming years cannot be imagined yet. These features will imply an increase of the computing demands, and consequently, of the heat dissipated inside them. The trend leads to complex stacks with heterogeneous modules of heat dissipating layers.These technologies will be integrated in everyday life. Internet of Things, as we call it, will demand an increasing amount of independent low footprint devices that will be connected. Heat dissipation strategies must therefore be compatible with increasingly smaller dimensions. Compact packages demand is growing rapidly, not only because of telephones and tablets, but also because of the massive introduction of electronics into in everyday life devices.The objective of the thesis is to study the integration of heat-spreaders in compact packages to enhance its thermal performance. This work goes deeply in the characterization of the thermal performance of carbon-base heat spreaders. Heat-spreaders are able to extract the heat produced in hot spots and transport it along its surface.In order to study the heat spreading phenomenon, a methodology that takes into account the multi-level nature of heat dissipation has been implemented. The objective is to be able to focus on the interaction between the heat-spreader and each one of the elements of the package stack. Two test vehicles have been re-used from previous works. A specific test vehicle was also design in order to emulate the thermal behavior of imaging sensors.The thesis is based on two main axes: Integration studies and thermal studies. The integration studies take into account the constraints derived from the implementation of heat spreaders in compact packages. Firstly, we focus on the implementation processes within an industrial process. Latelly, we study the thermomechanical effects of heat spreaders and the impact on the integrity of high frequency signals.Thermal studies are aimed to characterize the performance gain derived from this heat spreader integration. The thermal phenomena are analyzed with measurements and simulations. First at silicon and interface level, then at package level, finally we focus on the effects in image sensor die and package.In the light of the results it can be said that carbon based materials are the most interesting alternative for large-scale implementation of heat spreaders in compact packages. This implementation will be driven by the research of new functionalities and performances in compact packages. The heat spreader will have to perform while maintaining a minimal footprint. The combination of carbon layers at all package levels, along with reduced thermal interface thickness will be the trend in the coming years for this type of device.This thesis is part of a tripartite collaboration between the CEA-LETI of Grenoble, the G2Elab laboratory of the INP Grenoble and STMicroelectronics in Crolles.

The task for this master thesis was to create a specification for a second prototype of Scandilumen´s handheld gated night vision system. Current prototype is analogue and is to be upgraded with a digital interface. The specification was to contain information about manufacturers and performance on critical components such as image intensifier tube, image sensor and display. Scandilumen have previous experience with CCD cameras and wanted to know if the CMOS technology were sensitive enough to work properly in gated systems where high sensitivity is critical. Different image processing techniques was analyzed to find out the possibility to enhance image quality with an FPGA built-in into the system. When the specification is implemented, Scandilumen will have a prototype up-to-date with a digital interface and real time image enhancement. / Uppdraget i denna magisteruppsats var att ta fram en specifikation för en andra prototyp av Scandilumens grindade mörkerkamera. Nuvarande prototyp är analog och skall uppgraderas till en digital variant med display och anslutningsmöjlighet till dator. Specifikationen skall innehålla uppgifter om vilka ingående komponenter som skall användas samt vilken prestanda de skall ha. Exempel på dessa komponenter är bildförstärkarrör, bildsensor och displayer. Stor vikt har lagts vid att avgöra vilken typ av bildsensor som skall ingå i systemet. Scandilumen har tidigare erfarenhet av CCD-kameror men ville undersöka om CMOS-tekniken var känslig nog för denna typ av applikation. En jämförelse gjordes mellan de olika teknikerna med fokus på de höga krav som ställs på känslighet. Dessutom analyserades olika typer av bildbehandling som är lämpliga för systemet och som också går att implementera i en FPGA på lämpligt sätt. Om specifikationen följs kommer Scandilumen ha en prototyp uppdaterad med ett digitalt format och den senaste tekniken.

Algorithm-Based Efficient Approaches for Motion Estimation Systems Teahyung Lee 121 pages Directed by Dr. David V. Anderson This research addresses algorithms for efficient motion estimation systems. With the growth of wireless video system market, such as mobile imaging, digital still and video cameras, and video sensor network, low-power consumption is increasingly desirable for embedded video systems. Motion estimation typically needs considerable computations and is the basic block for many video applications. To implement low-power video systems using embedded devices and sensors, a CMOS imager has been developed that allows low-power computations on the focal plane. In this dissertation efficient motion estimation algorithms are presented to complement this platform. In the first part of dissertation we propose two algorithms regarding gradient-based optical flow estimation (OFE) to reduce computational complexity with high performance. The first is a checkerboard-type filtering (CBTF) algorithm for prefiltering and spatiotemporal derivative calculations. Another one is spatially recursive OFE frameworks using recursive LS (RLS) and/or matrix refinement to reduce the computational complexity for solving linear system of derivative values of image intensity in least-squares (LS)-OFE. From simulation results, CBTF and spatially recursive OFE show improved computational efficiency compared to conventional approaches with higher or similar performance. In the second part of dissertation we propose a new algorithm for video coding application to improve motion estimation and compensation performance in the wavelet domain. This new algorithm is for wavelet-based multi-resolution motion estimation (MRME) using temporal aliasing detection (TAD) to enhance rate-distortion (RD) performance under temporal aliasing noise. This technique gives competitive or better performance in terms of RD compared to conventional MRME and MRME with motion vector prediction through median filtering.

Color image acquisition and image processing have become a key in modern data application. In order to provide high quality images, the field of accurate acquisition is most important in respect to all further processing steps. But a whole variety of current image sensors possess incorrect color rendition due to insufficient accuracy of optical sensor parameters. This is detrimental especially for color sensors, because in these cases specific color information will be incorrectly acquired. Further, traditional color correction methods do not use information on the specific sensor spectral sensitivity, thus losing substantial information for color correction. The problem is investigated by introducing an algorithmic correction method which is capable of correcting dysfunctional sensor properties. The correction method is based on an enhancement of the CIE color perception model. According to this, color perception is modelled as a special integral transformation, where the spectral sensitivities of the photo receptors represent the base functions of the transformation. It is shown that different sets of photo receptors show the same perception, when their spectral sensitivities are linear dependent. On the other hand, photo receptors with no linear dependency show different perception and there is no analytical transformation between them. Thus, a perfect color correction is only possible if photo sensor and human perception show a linear dependency. In case of dissentient sensor characteristics, the correction method of spectral reconstruction can determine an optimal solution using a least square error optimization. Applying sensors with more than three color channels, this correction method can show improved results due to a better approximation. For implementation of the color correction scheme, different sensor designs have been developed. Compared with currently dominating CCD (Charge Coupled Device) technology, a realisation of image sensors based on CMOS technology show a high potential. CMOS technology allow the integration of the sensor together with control and image processing on the same chip, thus enabling the design of sensor systems at low cost. But modern sub-100nm technologies show also substantial disadvantages, such as increased leakage currents. Special circuit designs have been developed to especially reduce the influence of leakage currents. For application of the color correction method, new multi-channel photo sensors using vertically stacked photo diodes have been developed. The work further shows different concepts of multi-channel sensors capable of high quality color rendition. This approach is demonstrated on several new CMOS sensor designs with examples, implemented in a 90nm Infineon technology.

The constant strive for improvement of digital video capturing speeds together with power efficiency increase, has lead to tremendous research activities in the image sensor readout field during the past decade. The improvement of lithography and solid-state technologies provide the possibility of manufacturing higher resolution image sensors. A double resolution size-up, leads to a quadruple readout speed requirement, if the same capturing frame rate is to be maintained. The speed requirements of conventional serial readout techniques follow the same curve and are becoming more challenging to design, thus employing parallelism in the readout schemes appears to be inevitable for relaxing the analog readout circuits and keeping the same capturing speeds. This transfer however imposes additional demands to parallel ADC designs, mainly related to achievable accuracy, area and power. In this work a 12-bit Cyclic ADC (CADC) aimed for column-parallel readout implementation in CMOS image sensors is presented. The aim of the conducted study is to cover multiple CADC sub-component architectures and provide an analysis onto the latter to a mid-level of depth. A few various Multiplying DAC (MDAC) structures have been re-examined and a preliminary redundant signed-digit CADC design based on a 1.5-bit modified flip-over MDAC has been conducted. Three comparator architectures have been explored and a dynamic interpolative Sub-ADC is presented. Finally, some weak spots degrading the performance of the carried-out design have been analyzed. As an architectural improvement possibility two MDAC capacitor mismatch error reduction techniques have been presented.