 | This biographical article is written like a résumé .(December 2025) |
Eric R. Fossum (born October 17, 1957) is an American engineer who co-developed some of the active pixel image sensor with intra-pixel charge transfer, with the help of other scientists from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. [1] He is a professor at Thayer School of Engineering in Dartmouth College.
Fossum was born and raised in Simsbury, Connecticut. He graduated from Simsbury High School. He received his B.S. in engineering from Trinity College in 1979, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Yale University in 1984.
During the later years of his doctoral studies, Fossum served as an acting instructor at Yale University. [2] After graduating Yale, Fossum became a member of the Electrical Engineering faculty at Columbia University from 1984 to 1990. At Columbia University, Fossum performed research on CCD focal-plane image processing and high speed III-V CCDs. In 1990, Fossum joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology to manage JPL's image sensor and focal-plane technology research and advanced development. [3]
He joined the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth as a professor in 2010. [4]
During the early 1990s, a JPL research team that included Fossum, Sunetra Mendis, and Sabrina E. Kemeny developed modifications to existing CMOS active-pixel sensor (APS) designs. The team integrated Nobukazu Teranishi’s pinned photodiode concept into on-chip camera system designs. They also included other invented technologies by other people, such as a sample and hold in the sensor chip. [5] [6]
Based on these changes and additions, the JPL team made their first image sensor. [7] The invention of APS technology was done by the Japanese companies Olympus and Toshiba during the mid-to-late 1980s, noting the former developed the vertical APS structure with NMOS transistors and the latter developed the lateral APS structure with PMOS transistors. The JPL team fabricated an APS device based on CMOS technology, incorporating design modifications that differed from earlier Japanese implementations. The JPL sensor used a lateral APS structure similar to the Toshiba sensor, but was fabricated with CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) transistors rather than PMOS transistors. [8] The JPL-developed sensor incorporated intra-pixel charge transfer within a CMOS architecture, building on prior APS and pinned photodiode work developed elsewhere. [9]
In 1994, the JPL image sensor team proposed an improvement to the CMOS sensor: the integration of the pinned photodiode (PPD). A CMOS sensor with PPD technology was first fabricated in 1995 by a joint JPL and Kodak team that included Fossum along with P.P.K. Lee, R.C. Gee, R.M. Guidash and T.H. Lee. Further refinements to the CMOS sensor with PPD technology between 1997 and 2003 led to CMOS sensors achieve imaging performance on par with CCD sensors, and later exceeding CCD sensors. [9]
As part of Goldin's directive to transfer space technology to the public sector whenever possible, JPL led the CMOS APS development and subsequent transfer of the technology to US industry, including Eastman Kodak, AT&T Bell Labs, National Semiconductor and others. Despite initial skepticism by entrenched CCD manufacturers, the CMOS image sensor technology is now used in almost all cell-phone cameras, many medical applications such as capsule endoscopy and dental x-ray systems, scientific imaging, automotive safety systems, DSLR digital cameras and many other applications. About 8 billion cameras are manufactured each year using CMOS technology. [10]
In 1995 Fossum and Sabrina Kemeny co-founded Photobit Corporation with 3 other co-founders to commercialize the technology. [11] Fossum left JPL to join Photobit full-time in 1996.
In late 2001, Micron Technology Inc. acquired Photobit Corp. and Fossum was named a Senior Micron Fellow; he remained with Micron for about a year and eventually was let go. [12]
In 2005, he joined SiWave Inc., a developer of MEMS technology for mobile phone handsets, as CEO. SiWave was renamed Siimpel and grew substantially before his departure in 2007. During his tenure, the company raised multiple rounds of venture financing prior to his departure. [13] Severely damaged Siimpel was acquired by Tessera in 2010 for only $15M, as an asset only acquisition. [14]
In 1986, he co-founded the IEEE Workshop on CCDs, now known as the International Image Sensor Workshop (IISW). In 2007, with Nobukazu Teranishi and Albert Theuwissen, he co-founded and was the first President of the International Image Sensor Society (IISS) [15] which operates the IISW.
Fossum has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and holds a large portfolio of U.S. patents related to image sensor technology. [16] He is a Fellow of the IEEE [17] and Optica. [18]