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Human and Machine Vision pp 83–103Cite as

On-Chip Vision

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Abstract

This paper reviews the ever increasing activity in smart sensors, initiated in the 80’s by Mead’s silicon retina design. The gap between the sensors and the processors in a traditional image processing system can be partially reduced by embedding into the same silicon die both the transduction of incoming illumination and its interpretation through some processing function. If we consider the silicon die a “real estate” on which to build the smart sensor, many possible alternatives arise, which either privilege the sensing function or the processing one. On-chip-vision is the domain of integration that tries to balance the available silicon resources between these two extreme approaches. Analog processing is a viable solution for many tasks, though it leads to implementations that lack a general programmability. Application specific solutions, according to the ASIC paradigm, take a more flexible approach in mixing both analog and digital processing, according to the single task embedded in the silicon die. General purpose digital retinas, which combine an array of sensors with a programmable digital cellular array of simple processors, have also been proposed and built; the area trade-off between the sensing function and the near-neighbour connectivity suited to low level image processing is a major issue for further research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Pavia, Via Abbiategrasso 209, I - 27100, Pavia, Italy

    Marco Ferretti

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  1. Marco Ferretti
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  1. University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Virginio Cantoni

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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Ferretti, M. (1994). On-Chip Vision. In: Cantoni, V. (eds) Human and Machine Vision. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1004-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1004-2_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-1006-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-1004-2

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