Image Sensors on 2009 Electronic Imaging Conference

The program of SPIE Electronic Imaging 2009 contains many interesting papers on image sensors. First, Industrial and Scientific Sensors and Sytems session:

Fujifilm continues its work on organic film image sensors:

CMOS-image sensor with overlaid organic-photoelectric conversion layers: development of layers with desirable spectral sensitivities
Author(s): Mikio Ihama, Tetsuro Mitsui, Takashi Goto, Kimiatsu Nomura, FUJIFILM Corp. (Japan)

French Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique presents something that sounds similar to the recent Canon color filter patent application:

Nanoplasmonic filters for image sensors
Author(s): Stephane Getin, Yohan Désières, Catherine Pellé, Olivier Lartigue, Ludovic Poupinet, Laurent Frey, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (France)

Yet another unusual color filter paper from the same organization:

Thin color and stop-infrared metal-dielectric filters for CMOS-image sensors
Author(s): Gilles Grand, Catherine Pellé, Laurent Frey, Norbert Moussy, Jacques Raby, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (France)

Global shutter is not new, so I wonder what Photron and Toshiba can say in their mutual paper:

A global electronic shutter pixel using pinned diodes fabricated in standard CMOS-image sensor technology
Author(s): Keita Yasutomi, Shoji Kawahito, Shinya Ito, Shizuoka Univ. (Japan); Toshihiro Tamura, Photron Ltd. (Japan); Masanori Furuta, Toshiba Corp. Semiconductor Co. (Japan)

Toshiba continues to perfect its 2.2um pixel generation:

Low Gr-Gb sensitivity imbalance 3.2M CMOS-image sensor with 2.2-μm pixel
Author(s): Nagataka Tanaka, Junji Naruse, Hirofumi Yamashita, Ikuko Inoue, Makoto Monoi, Toshiba Corp. (Japan)

Toshiba also perfects its CCDs:

A single-layer CCD image sensor with wide-gap electrode and gradual potential channel

Author(s): Makoto Monoi, Toshiba Corp. (Japan); Syu Sasaki, Kumiko Dobashi, Junya Iwai, Hirokazu Sekine, Iwate Toshiba Electronics Co., Ltd. (Japan); Masayuki Ooki, Seiichi Mashiko, Hiroyuki Saito, Toshiba Microelectronics Corp. (Japan); Ken Tomita, Yasushi Itabashi, Toshiba Corp. (Japan)

Aptina tells about its modeling techniques:

Computational modeling of CMOS image sensor pixels: from module lens to photoelectron
Author(s): Jeff Mackey, Victor A. Lenchenkov, William Gazeley, Xiaofeng Fan, Ulrich C. Boettiger, Gennadiy A. Agranov, Aptina Imaging (United States)

Panasonic found a way to adjust spectral response of its sensors. I hope it's something more smart than just controlling the photodiode voltage and depletion depth:

A day and night MOS imager spectrally adjusted for a wide range of color temperatures
Author(s): Koyama Shinzo, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Japan)

AWAIBA is trying to penetrate to the lucrative endoscopic market:

Minimal form factor digital-image sensor for endoscopic applications
Author(s): Martin Wäny, Stephan Voltz, Fabio Gaspar, Lei Chen, AWAIBA Lda. (Portugal)

There are few more interesting papers in the Digital Photography session:

DALSA explores large sensor trade-offs:

Very-large-area CCD image sensors: concept and cost-effective research
Author(s): Erik W. Bogaart, Inge M. Peters, Agnes C. Kleimann, Erik-Jan P. Manoury, Wilco Klaassens, Walter de Laat, DALSA Corp. (Netherlands); Cees Draijer, Raymond Frost, DALSA Corp. (Canada); Jan T. Bosiers, DALSA Corp. (Netherlands)

Big surprise - Omnivision's paper! I think this is the first time ever that Omnivision publishes a technical paper on a technical conference (marketing papers are not counted):

Decoupling light collection efficiency and color crosstalk from the Quantum Efficiency Spectrum for the CMOS image sensor pixel development
Author(s): Yang Wu, Philip J. Cizdziel, Howard E. Rhodes, OmniVision Technologies, Inc. (United States)

Aptina presents something that sounds quite interesting:

Pixel with photodiode-contained readout circuitry
Author(s): John W. Ladd, Gennadiy A. Agranov, Xiaofeng Fan, Rick Mauritzson, Zhiping Yin, Robert Gravelle, Xinya Lei, Richard D. Holscher, Aptina Imaging (United States)

Peter Catrysse from Stanford trims small microlens expectations:

Microlens performance limits in sub-2um pixel CMOS image sensors
Author(s): Yijie Huo, Christian C. Fesenmaier, Peter B. Catrysse, Stanford Univ. (United States)

There are too many interesting papers to mention. The course part has two courses for beginners by James R. Janesick, Sarnoff Corp.:

Introduction to CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors and Applications

Digital Camera and Sensor Evaluation Using Photon Transfer

Thanks to A.T. for keeping me updated on that.