Abstract

This thesis proposes a new low-power and low-area DAC for single-slope ADCs used in CMOS image sensors. With increase in resolution requirements for ADCs, conventional DAC architectures suffered the limitation of either large area or high power consumption with higher resolution scaling. Thus, the proposed capacitive transimpedance amplifier DAC (CTIA DAC) could solve this by offering the resolution requirement required without taking a hit on the area or power budget.

The thesis has been structured in the following manner:

The first chapter introduces image sensors in general and talks about progression through different image sensors and pixel architectures that have been used through the years. It also explains the operation of a CMOS image sensor from a paper published from Sony on high-speed image sensors.

The second chapter presents the importance and role of DACs in CMOS image sensors and briefly explains a few commonly used DAC architectures in image sensors. It explains the advantages and disadvantages of present architectures and leads the discussion towards the development of the proposed DAC.

The third chapter gives an overview of the CTIA DAC and explains the working of the different circuit blocks that are used to implement the proposed DAC.

Chapter Four explains the design approach for the blocks explained in Chapter Three. It presents the critical design choices that were made for overall performance of the DAC. Results of individual blocks and the DAC as a whole are presented and compared against other recently published DAC papers.

The final chapter summarizes some key results of the design and talks about the scope for future work and improvement.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Power electronics; Metal oxide semiconductors, Complementary; Digital-to-analog converters; Image converters--Equipment and supplies; Image processing--Digital techniques

Publication Date

12-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Electrical Engineering (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Electrical Engineering (KGCOE)

Advisor

James E. Moon

Advisor/Committee Member

Mark Pude

Advisor/Committee Member

P R Mukund

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

EEEE-MS

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