Digital-color CMOS camera provides low-cost video for personal computers

Digital-color CMOS camera provides low-cost video for personal computers

The first digital-color CMOS camera was launched at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (Las Vegas, NV) by VLSI Vision Ltd. (Edinburgh, Scotland) in association with film-camera-manufacturer Vivitar (Newbury Park, CA). Intended for the personal-computer videoteleconferencing market, the device is reportedly the first to incorporate Vision`s color CMOS technology and delivers color video through the PC parallel port at 15 frames per second with a resolution of 160 ¥ 120 pixels.

In color CMOS cameras, red, green, and blue pixel color filters are added to a CMOS sensor array. Each pixel is color-coated to detect a single primary color, and a digital signal processor then interpolates full three-color picture data at each pixel location. According to Don Lake at Vision, the advantages of CMOS-based cameras compared to more-common CCD-based systems include lower costs and low power requirements (single 5-V line); additionally, because the technology is fully compatible with other CMOS integrated circuits, all camera functions easily can be integrated onto the same chip as the sensor.