Design concept for a low-noise CCD image sensor based on subjective evaluation

To achieve a high-performance image sensor for a broadcast TV camera, several studies of the noise characteristics of a CCD image sensor are described. The noise perception limit and the dependence of random noise and fixed pattern noise (FPN) on signal charge in a CCD imager were measured to obtain a correlation between measured noise and subjective noise. A method has been devised to measure FPN and random noise separately. Using this method, it has been confirmed that noise can be reduced to less than the perception limit using new noise-suppression techniques.< >