Panasonic 10x Higher Saturation Global Shutter Organic Sensor

Businessire: Panasonic develops a new global shutter CMOS sensor using organic photoconductive film (OPF). The technology is said to enable capturing high speed moving object up to 10 times brighter scene in global shutter mode. In OPF CMOS image sensor, charge-storage function and photoelectric-conversion function can be set independently. Motion direction can be detected from acquired object's signal level in one picture by fine control of shutter sensitivity by changing applied voltage to OPF which is hardly realized by conventional CMOS image sensors.

The new technology has the following advantages:

1. Wide incident angle (60 degrees), high sensitivity, high saturation and highly-functional circuits due to a unique feature of OPF, in which an OPF for photoelectric-conversion and a readout circuits are independent.
2. High saturation signal up to 10 times larger than conventional image sensors with global shutter function due to Photoelectric Conversion Controlled Global Shutter Technology.

This development is based on the following new technologies:

1. CMOS Image Sensor Design Technology, in that, an OPF photoelectric-conversion part and a circuit part can be designed independently.
2. Photoelectric Conversion Controlled Global Shutter Technology that is realized by controlling of organic photoconductive film sensitivity.
3. Variable Sensitivity Multiple Exposure Technology which can detect the motion and its direction by changing image capturing sensitivity in each frame.

Panasonic holds 60 Japanese patents and 41 overseas patents (including pending) related to this technology.

Panasonic presented a part of the research at 2016 ISSCC.