SI-6600- M & RGB MegaCamera™  

6.6 Megapixel, 10-Bit, 40MHz

Ultra-High Resolution Portrait Digital Camera 

Silicon Imaging Inc.

Silicon Imaging is proud to continue its innovation in ultra-high resolution machine vision camera.  Driven by the growing demand for consumer Digital Still Cameras, CMOS sensors are continuing to break technical barriers and surpass the performance characteristics of CCD’s in many photonic, imaging and consumer applications.  By utilizing a single highly integrated CMOS device, which incorporates Megapixel sensing areas, timing generation, signal processing and high bandwidth outputs, Silicon Imaging has developed a very compact, low-power, ultra high speed Megapixel digital camera system.

2208 x 2960 Megapixel Imaging - Ultra Resolution
The SI-6600 is an all-digital CMOS camera that delivers 6.6 Million pixels of resolution and is capable of running at 6 frames/second at its full 2208 x 2960 resolution.  The entire package is only 45 x 52 x 50mm (33 x 40mm x 22mm in PCB) and is small enough to placed on a robot for semiconductor machine vision inspection or placed in an outdoor housing for remote surveillance.  It is ideal for live visualization of documents or films and scanning of biometrics for handprint or facial recognition.

10-Bit Pixel Clock Sampling – Sub-Pixel Accuracy
The SI-6600 MegaCameraä uses 10-Bit digitizers to sample the pixel data.  Converting the pixel data directly to digital at the sensor head eliminates pixel-sampling jitter and enables accurate sub-pixel metrology, image analysis and improved live video reconstruction.  A programmable clock which ranges from 7~40MHz allows for trade-offs in speed versus exposure time and lower noise. 

200 FPS - Windowing & Subsampling
Ideal for object tracking and high-speed Motion analysis, the SI-6600 is capable of generating imagery at over 200 frames per second by reducing the size of the readout image (ex. 100x100).    This windowed Region-of–Interest (ROI) can be moved dynamically, creating an entirely electronic pan/tilt/zoom function within the camera field-of-view.

USB2.0 Bus-Powered – 40MB/sec Transfers
For low-cost and portable connectivity, with data transfer rates up to 40MB/sec, the SI-6600U provide convenient capture using the High-Speed 480Mb/sec USB 2.0 interface. It is a bus-powered unit, consuming less than 500mA at 5VDC and will operate without any external power supply. The precision-machined C-mount housing includes an integrated tethered USB cable. For OEM board level configurations, two General Purpose Outputs are accessible; Pull-Up and pull-down driven transistors to be used to control light sources and switches

Microsoft-XP™ Live Mode Driver -  Fast capture
For applications which require a combination of high-resolution and streaming high-frame rate video images, Silicon Imaging has developed a custom driver which can request and capture double buffered images at the driver level.  This method enables immediate request to camera for next image without user level software intervention.  The double-buffers allow one image to processed by the host PC, while another image is being readout from the camera and filled into the user allocated memory space.

FEATURES

·       2208 x 2960 Resolution (6.6Million Pixels)

·       Rolling Shutter, Progressive scan

·       1” Imaging Format , 3.5um Square Pixel

·       Windowing and Subsampling

·       10 Bits per Pixel, 7~40MHz Sampling

·       High Speed Readout (6 ~ 200FPS)

·       Region-of-Interest (ROI) windowing

·       Gamma & NDR Readout

·       Programmable Gain, Offset, Clock, Exposure

·       External Clock Synchronization (option)

·       Monochrome & Color Bayer RGB Models

·       5VDC Low Power, Small Package

·       C-Mount Housing or PCB versions

·       USB 2.0 High-Speed Interface

SI-6600 Cameralink Manual (PDF 1.5MB)

6.6 Megapixel CMOS Image Sensor 

The MegaCamera SI-6600 utilizes a proprietary portrait style 6.6 Million pixel high-speed CMOS image sensor.  Each pixel is 3.5um square, ideal for image processing, and the entire array fits the 1” format for flexible optic choices.  This reduction in process geometry allows for both an increase in transistors and fill factor without compromising performance, plus offers more advanced readout controls, greater speeds and lower power dissipation.   This new sensor technology offers a more responsive pixel design with added circuitry for increased dynamic range, greater sensitivity, decreased fixed pattern noise and low dark current for long exposure applications.  Unlike CCD, which leak charge to adjacent pixels when the registers overflow (blooms), the SI-6600 provides inherent anti-blooming protection in each pixel, so that there is no blooming.

 The array has 2210 pixels on a line and 3002 rows, which result in a near 3:4 portrait aspect ratio.  The SI-6600 outputs 2208 x 2960, using 42 rows for interframe blanking.  The image can be rotated 90-degrees to obtain a 4:3 image. In addition, by using the windowing feature, a 16:9 aspect ratio (eg. 1280x 720) or 1:1 aspect ratio (1024 x 1024) are available. At smaller ROI sizes (eg. 128 x 128) frame rates in excess of 1000fps.  

The SI-6600 MegaCamera achieves high data rates by simultaneously accessing two adjacent pixels at a time and reading them out sequentially.  These pixel values feed thru a gain & offset amplifier and then to on-board dual 10-Bit A/D converters and placed onto a 12-bit data bus for transmission.   The entire imager field of view can also be readout using subsampling.  In this mode, 2 pixels are readout and a group of pixels are skipped.  As fewer pixel are output, the frame rate increases

In a color model, a Bayer filter covers each of the pixels to produce a pattern of values that represent the color information, which must be processed and interpolated to obtain an RGB value per pixel.  The 12-bit output format from the camera is identical for monochrome and color models.

The camera sensor is light sensitive between 400 and 1000 nm. The peak QE * FF is 22.5% approximately between 500 and 700 nm. In view of a fill factor of 35%, the QE is thus close to 70% between 500 and 700 nm.

The figure above shows the pixel response curve in linear response mode. This curve is the relation between the electrons detected in the pixel and the output signal. The resulting voltage-electron curve is independent of any parameters (integration time, etc). The voltage to electrons conversion gain is 37 µV/electron.

10-Bit Digital Sampling System

 A 10-Bit Analog-to-digital (A/D) converter samples each pixel value and quantizes it into 1024 levels, as it is clocked out of the sensor.  Pixel clock sampling ensures precise measurement of the photonic charge without the jitter and sampling uncertainty associated with traditional analog video systems, such as RS-170 and CCIR.  The camera produces images which can deliver improved photometry accuracy and sub-pixel metrology. The use of 10-bit converters versus traditional 8-bit systems further enhances the image dynamic range.  The combination of 10-bit vertical resolution and pixel clock sampling provide precise sub-pixel measurement accuracy (ex. 1/10 pixel).

Digital Clock Synthesizer & 8/16-Bit Transfer Modes

 A wide range a master clock frequencies (eg. 7 to 40MHz) can by precisely generated using the Digital Clock Synthesizer.  The clock rate adjustment can be used to tradeoff speed versus bit depth.  For example, the camera can be programmed to operate at 40MHz (40MB/sec burst transfer rate) in 8bit mode.  Then, to get 10-bit per pixel, the user can switch to 16-bit mode and operate at 20MHz and still maintain continuous transfers within the 40MB/sec limits.

Embedded Microprocessor

A microprocessor in the camera provides the control interface between the PC and the functional block in the camera (Sensor, Clock Synthesizer, Register Memory, Channel Link Interface & Serial port (CameraLink).  The Microprocessor receives commands thru the LVDS level serial port and issues commands to the other devices.  It also can store preset values for camera setting, which can be recalled with single ASCII character commands.  Several digital I/O or analog sampling signals are available on the processor from PCB header points for custom OEM applications.

USB 2.0 High-Speed Interface

The SI-6600U provide convenient capture using the High-Speed 480Mb/sec USB 2.0 interface. It is a bus-powered unit, consuming less than 500mA at 5VDC and will operate without any external power supply. The precision-machined C-mount housing includes an integrated tethered USB cable and optional 3-pin trigger/strobe connection. For OEM board level configurations, two General Purpose Outputs are accessible; Pull-Up and pull-down driven transistors to be used to control light sources and switches. A USB driver is provided which provides additional functionality for high-speed image capture and event notification.

Sample Test Images  (2200 x 3000)

    
            Click on images to enlarge                                   Click on images to enlarge (raw bayer)

6.6MP Mono Full Size Image- 2.5MB & 1.7MB JPG! (click)