Digital cameras are now small and everywhere, from cell phones to iPads to webcams to pill cameras to automobiles to digital SLRs to Mars Rovers. The images from these cameras shape our culture on a daily basis, from Facebook and Skype to unforgettable images of the Japanese tsunami and the Arab Spring. This presentation will address the science and engineering technology behind capturing these images, as well as a brief history of how this technology transferred from the lab at JPL into your cell phone. Future technology directions including the Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) will be discussed.
Eric R. Fossum is Professor of Engineering in Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering and a consultant to Samsung Electronics Semiconductor R&D Center. One of the world's leading solid-state image sensor device physicists, he has more than 135 US patents to his name. He is best known for inventing the CMOS image sensor. Today, his 'camera-on-a-chip technology is used in nearly all camera phones and webcams, digital-still cameras, high-speed motion capture cameras, automotive cameras, dental x-ray cameras, and swallowable pill cameras. This year he was inducted to the National Inventor's Hall of Fame.