Stacked image sensor with programmable edge detection for high frame rate imaging and an imaging method thereof

A compact high frame rate image sensing system, comprising:

• an image sensor array and control circuits chip for acquiring an imaging signal;
• an image processing and logic chip stacked on and connected to the image sensor array and control circuits chip wherein the image processing and logic chip comprises a field programmable image feature edge or boundary detecting filter block and wherein programming parameters enable the filter block to extract a single-bit image data map representation of multi-bit image data in order to reduce image processing time and power consumption;
• an on-chip programmable reconfiguration circuit to provide the programming parameters to the field programmable image edge or filter block in order to optimize the image sensing system for a specific application;
• and
• wherein the image processing and logic chip comprises a plurality of the edge or boundary detection filters, and the image processing and logic chip outputs final merged single-bit image data by a voting or assigning a weight to each of the plurality of the edge or boundary detection filters for further image signal processing.

A compact high frame rate image sensing system, comprising:

• an image sensor array and control circuits chip for acquiring an imaging signal;
• an image processing and logic chip stacked on and connected to the image sensor array and control circuits chip wherein the image processing and logic chip comprises a field programmable image feature edge or boundary detecting filter block and wherein programming parameters enable the filter block to extract a single-bit image data map representation of multi-bit image data in order to reduce image processing time and power consumption;
• an on-chip programmable reconfiguration circuit to provide the programming parameters to the field programmable image edge or filter block in order to optimize the image sensing system for a specific application;
• a digital data memory chip stacked and coupled between the image sensor array and control circuits chip and the image processing and logic chip for storing the multi-bit image data from the image sensor array and control circuits chip;
• and
• wherein one or more trigger regions are defined within the imaging array such that when a moving object enters one of the trigger regions an alert signal is forwarded to the image processing and logic chip causing a predefined action to occur within the image processing and logic chip.

A compact high frame rate image sensing system, comprising:

• an image sensor array and control circuits chip for acquiring an imaging signal;
• an image processing and logic chip stacked on and connected to the image sensor array and control circuits chip wherein the image processing and logic chip comprises a field programmable image feature edge or boundary detecting filter block and wherein programming parameters enable the filter block to extract a single-bit image data map representation of multi-bit image data in order to reduce image processing time and power consumption;
• an on-chip programmable reconfiguration circuit to provide the programming parameters to the field programmable image edge or filter block in order to optimize the image sensing system for a specific application;
• a digital data memory chip stacked and coupled between the image sensor array and control circuits chip and the image processing and logic chip for storing the multi-bit image data from the image sensor array and control circuits chip;
• and
• wherein the row drivers and control circuits supporting the image sensor array and control circuits chip are placed on one of the digital data memory chip or the image processing and logic chip in order to reduce the area of the image sensor chip.

A compact high frame rate image sensor system imaging method, the method comprising the steps of:

• obtaining an image signal, the image signal being multi-bit image data;
• providing programming parameters to an edge or boundary detection filter;
• converting by means of the edge or boundary detection filter the multi-bit image data into single-bit image data, and forming a single-bit image data map representing the multi-bit image data;
• performing image signal processing based on the single-bit image data;
• and
• wherein the multi-bit image data comprises a plurality of multi-bit pixel data, and the edge or boundary detection filter respectively calculates the plurality of the multi-bit pixel data based on the programming parameters, and the calculated result values are respectively compared with a threshold value for outputting a plurality of single-bit pixel data constituted the single-bit image data.

A compact high frame rate image sensor system imaging method, comprising the steps of:

• obtaining an image signal, the image signal being multi-bit image data;
• providing programming parameters to an edge or boundary detection filter;
• converting by means of the edge or boundary detection filter the multi-bit image data into single-bit image data, and forming a single-bit image data map representing the multi-bit image data;
• performing image signal processing based on the single-bit image data;
• defining one or several trigger regions;
• determining whether there is a moving object based on multi-bit image data of the preceding and succeeding frames in the digital data memory chip;
• determining whether the moving object enters the trigger region;
• generating an alarm signal when the moving object enters the trigger region;
• and
• generating a predefined action based on the alarm signal.