The inventor of CMOS imaging

Since most sensors these days depend on CMOS tech. we should be more than interested in this article about DPReview member Eric Fossum:

www.dpreview.com/articles/1014662014/inventor-cmos-sensor-eric-fossum-science-space-metaphysical-photons

Podcast here:

www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/podcasts/photography/camera-on-a-chip-eric-fossums-invention-of-the-cmos-image-sensor

"modern cmos sensor" cmos circuits and photo transistors were invented 30 years before.

<dupe deleted>

<deleted after reading subsequent posts by others>

Hi,

Exactly.

CMOS was used in many components well before there was even a CCD image sensor. Back when the electronic image component was still a vacuum tube, a Vidicon, CMOS components were used inside the television cameras as well.

It was all a progression. Flying spot scanners to Vidicons to CCD to CMOS.

Stan

CMOS came out of Fairchild R&D Labs, later known as Fairchild Semiconductor in 1963. Fairchild developed the process to produce these types of
transistors and patented the term CMOS.

www.computerhistory.org/siliconengine/complementary-mos-circuit-configuration-is-invented/#:~:text=In%20a%201963%20conference%20paper,that%20today%20is%20called%20CMOS.

It was developed for applications in the defense and aerospace industry. By the mid 1970's it had found its way into
many consumer applications. BTW Fairchild R&D Labs was started by Gordon Moore who later left and formed Intel with
funding from Fairchild Camera and Instrument and its owner Sherman Fairchild.

While Fairchild developed the first process to fab CMOS components, the theory behind the CMOS transistor goes back to the late 1940's.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS

The advantage of CMOS image sensors is all the circuitry necessary to transform the light gathered by the photon detectors is on the sensor chip. A secondary chip is not required. CMOS is low power and produces little heat. With a CCD, the charged is marched off the chip to a second chip that does the amplification and conditioning, analogue to digital conversion and quantization. CMOS gives a one chip solution. CCD's are power hungry and produce more heat which is why in many applications CCD sensors are cooled.

However, for many applications that require high sensitivity and low noise, CCD sensors are used over CMOS. For example the sensors in both the Hubble and James Webb telescopes are CCD. The other problem with CMOS is CMOS susceptible to degradation by ionizing radiation (X-rays and Gamma rays). That limits the utility of CMOS in space applications.

Fossum's contribution was the use of CMOS as an image sensor, AFAIK. I used to specify/buy CMOS logic chips long before that.

Thank god for google hey 🤔 ive been into electronics since i was 15, worked for apple as a systems designer in the 80s 😁 made IBM look like a kindergarten company. shame companies were to stupid to not invest, they had lost all there money to IBM systems and weren't game to give apple a go.

MRP i cant disclose. due to contracts signed. i was told some of my programs were in operation for 20 years, i left the industry from having a massive breakdown. have never returned.

Having programmed my 80's M68000 Mac in assembly language just for fun long ago, I sympathize with your breakdown !!

P.S. I changed to FORTH. Much better.

when your doctor tells you you will be dead before 35 and i was 28 its time to give it all up, blood pressure 230 190, sold everything i owned and went sailing. 35 years later was it the right discission. you bet it was. money and possessions is not wealth, had an old boss tell me i was mad, he was worth 20 mil back in the 80s he rang me 15 years later he had a stroke and was paralysed from the waste down could never enjoy his wealth, told me i made the right choice in life.
isnt it amazing the mac was $10k in australia was it a great machine in its day. i specialized in omnis 3 and had 2 programmers working along side me rewriting the code to suit the applications i was designing. cant remember now it was "c" c+ or fortran. they were slick systems that talked with 2 mil $ vax systems, i had a few systems government approved as well, not just private businesses. the 2 programmers were geniuses but boy did they consume truckloads of coffee and cigarettes 😁not to mention gallons of scotch 🤔 we were going to be multi million airs before we were 30 🤣 you know how the storey goes.

what pissed me off, some of my mass selling software programs would sell for $20k, after all the middle men fees i would get $5k and then expected to back up the systems and train the companies how to use it for the rest of its life . then i was asked to write detailed user manuals😒my programs were ( button/ menu driven) easy to use but very sophisticated as well. it was out of control everyone else bar me was making money. In the building industry i would do a job and never see it again. the computer game software/programs would haunt your forever.

it was the pioneer days back then. i think we just went with what seemed right. i was on a good retainer salary $50k + 10% of hardware sales + software sales, but it was so disappointing spending months of programming for 20 full hardware + software systems only for company not going ahead with the sale as they were to hesitant with apple, i have no idea if apple are even part of big business systems today. I also enjoyed excel back then designing spread sheets for $50 mil turnover companies that operated in Australia, they wanted professionally printed reports done with the flick of a button. reports that would normally take weeks took hours.

I think most cameras today used in low light microscopy are CMOS and they are typically cooled.