Neuromorphic optical sensor chip with color change-intensity change disambiguation

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the development of a novel, retina-like neuromorphic chip that has an array of two types of retina 'cells' arranged to mimic the fovea structure in certain animals. One of the two retina cell types performs irradiance detection and the other can perform color detection. Together, via the two parallel pathways the retina chip can perform color change intensity change disambiguation (CCICD). The irradiance detection cell has a wide-dynamic detection range that spans almost 3 orders of magnitude. The color detection cell has a buried double junction (BDJ) photodiode as the photoreceptor followed by two parallel logarithmic I-V convertors. The output from this is a color response which has at least a 50nm resolution for wavelengths from 400nm to 900nm. With these two cells, the array can perform color change -intensity change disambiguation (CCICD) to determine if a change in the output of the irradiance pathway is because of irradiance change, color change, or both. This biological retina-like neuromorphic sensor array is implemented in ON-SEMI 0.5μm technology, a standard CMOS fabrication process available at MOSIS.