Peter L. P. Dillon

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Dillon, c. 1970s Dillon Photo from 70s.jpg
Dillon, c. 1970s

Peter L. P. Dillon (born March 22, 1934) is an American physicist, and the inventor of integral color image sensors [1] and single-chip color video cameras. [2] The curator of the Technology Collection at the George Eastman Museum, Todd Gustavson, has stated that "the color sensor technology developed by Peter Dillon has revolutionized all forms of color photography. These color sensors are now ubiquitous in products such as smart phone cameras, digital cameras and camcorders, digital cinema cameras, medical cameras, automobile cameras, and drones". [3] Dillon joined Kodak Research Labs in 1959 and retired from Kodak in 1991. [4] He lives in Pittsford, New York.

Contents

Early life and education

Peter Dillon was born in Richmond, Virginia on March 22, 1934. He attended the University of Virginia where he received a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1956. [4] Upon graduation, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship at Cambridge University, England. [4] He joined Kodak Research Labs (KRL) in 1959. [4]

Integral color image sensors

In early 1974, KRL began an effort to develop a one-piece color video camera / recorder (now known as a camcorder), to replace home movie cameras which used 8mm film. [4] Work on the magnetic recorder portion was headed by James U. Lemke, [5] while Peter Dillon was responsible for the camera portion. [3] KRL had already begun research related to charge coupled devices (CCDs), which were invented in the late 1960s at Bell Labs. [6] But CCD sensors only captured black and white (i.e., monochrome) images. At the time, a color CCD camera required three sensors and a color beam splitter (e.g., a prism), making it too bulky and expensive for a handheld camcorder [7]

In 1974, Dillon conceived the idea of fabricating a pattern of color filters directly on top of the individual pixels of a CCD image sensor, during the latter steps of the wafer fabrication process. [1] He recognized that such a color filter array (CFA) would selectively sensitize some of the sensor’s pixels to only capture red light, some to only capture green light, and the remainder to only capture blue light. [8] After working with his KRL colleagues to fabricate the CFA and develop the circuitry needed for a single-chip color camera, Dillon presented his work at an IEEE conference in December 1976. [1]

To determine the best color pattern to use, Dillon consulted his KRL colleague Bryce Bayer. [3] In response, Bayer invented a pattern having 50% green pixels arranged in a checkerboard, with alternate rows of red and blue pixels in between, which is now widely known as the “Bayer filter”. [9] However, the Bayer CFA was incompatible with the interlaced readout used in NTSC television scanning, since red and blue appear only on alternate lines and therefore only in alternate fields. [2] Dillon then invented an alternative CFA pattern, with a green checkerboard, and blue color values on each line. [10] He used this pattern for the color CCD sensor (shown in the below figure) in the single chip camera he developed [2]

In order to develop a color filter array fabrication process which was compatible with semiconductor fabrication processes, Dillon collaborated with his Kodak colleague, KRL Physical Chemist Albert Brault. [3] Brault invented a process using dye sublimation through photoresist windows onto a receiving polymer layer that was coated on top of the pixels of a CCD image sensor during the wafer fabrication stage. [11] As a result, the color filters could be simultaneously applied to the hundreds of image sensor chips being fabricated on the same wafer before the chips were diced and packaged. This made the process very economical.

First color CCD image sensor First CFA imager using Fairchild CCD.png
First color CCD image sensor

Since Kodak had not yet developed working CCD image sensors, KRL fabricated the first CFA (using Dillon’s CFA pattern) on a small glass plate. [1] The glass plate coated with the CFA was registered and bonded to the top of an existing 100 x 100 pixel CCD sensor made by Fairchild, from which the cover glass had been removed. [12] The performance of the CFA itself, and the combination of the CFA and monochrome CCD, were reported in a 1978 paper. [12]

Single-chip color camera processing

Color image interpolation (Demosaicing) CFA Interpolation circuit.png
Color image interpolation (Demosaicing)

Dillon incorporated this 100 x 100 pixel color image sensor in the world's first single-chip color video camera, which he described in an IEEE paper published in February 1978. [2] Dillon and Bayer invented the image processing algorithm and circuitry used in the camera, which is described U.S. Patent No. 4,176,373. [13] This patent describes the signal processing circuitry used to create full red, green, and blue camera output signals from the CFA pixel values. The circuitry samples the sensor’s output signal at the appropriate times, in order to decode the color pattern, and then interpolates intermediate values between the samples. It processes the green pixels to produce a high spatial frequency luminance signal, which is added to the three low spatial frequency color channels, [8] as shown in the figure Today, all single-sensor color cameras use a more sophisticated version of this fundamental approach, now known as “demosaicing”. [14]

Dillon is responsible for another important video camera technology, which extends the range of operation at low light levels. As described in U.S. Patent No. 4,016,597, [15] Dillon and his KRL colleague Jim DePalma recognized that integral color image sensors are sensitive to infrared (IR) wavelengths. As a result, color video cameras must include an Infrared (IR) blocking filter in order to obtain proper color reproduction. [16] They demonstrated that, by automatically removing the IR blocking filter at very low light levels, the sensitivity could be significantly increased to produce acceptable monochrome images. [15] This invention is widely used today to provide a "night vision" feature in camcorders and color video security cameras [17]

Honors and awards

Dillon (left) and Albert Brault (right) holding their Emmy statues Dillon and Brault with Emmys.jpg
Dillon (left) and Albert Brault (right) holding their Emmy statues

Dillon and Albert Brault both received Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards in 2019 for “Pioneering Development of the Single-Chip Color Camera”. [3] [18] In 2022, they received the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award for “Contributions to the development of image sensors with integrated color filter arrays for digital video and still cameras". [19] [20]

Related Research Articles

A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a major technology used in digital imaging.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital camera</span> Camera that captures photographs or video in digital format

A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices like smartphones with the same or more capabilities and features of dedicated cameras. High-end, high-definition dedicated cameras are still commonly used by professionals and those who desire to take higher-quality photographs.

Digital image processing is the use of a digital computer to process digital images through an algorithm. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image processing has many advantages over analog image processing. It allows a much wider range of algorithms to be applied to the input data and can avoid problems such as the build-up of noise and distortion during processing. Since images are defined over two dimensions, digital image processing may be modeled in the form of multidimensional systems. The generation and development of digital image processing are mainly affected by three factors: first, the development of computers; second, the development of mathematics ; and third, the demand for a wide range of applications in environment, agriculture, military, industry and medical science has increased.

LBCAST is a type of photo sensor which the manufacturer claims is simpler and thus smaller and faster than CMOS sensors. It was developed over ten years by Nikon, in parallel with other manufacturer's development of CMOS, and resulted in shipping product in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camcorder</span> Video camera with built-in video recorder

A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-swappable battery facing towards the user, hot-swappable recording media, and an internally contained quiet optical zoom lens.

The Foveon X3 sensor is a digital camera image sensor designed by Foveon, Inc., and manufactured by Dongbu Electronics. It uses an array of photosites that consist of three vertically stacked photodiodes. Each of the three stacked photodiodes has a different spectral sensitivity, allowing it to respond differently to different wavelengths. The signals from the three photodiodes are then processed as additive color data that are transformed to a standard RGB color space. In the late 1970s, a similar color sensor having three stacked photo detectors at each pixel location, with different spectral responses due to the differential absorption of light by the semiconductor, had been developed and patented by Kodak.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bayer filter</span> Color filter array

A Bayer filter mosaic is a color filter array (CFA) for arranging RGB color filters on a square grid of photosensors. Its particular arrangement of color filters is used in most single-chip digital image sensors used in digital cameras, and camcorders to create a color image. The filter pattern is half green, one quarter red and one quarter blue, hence is also called BGGR, RGBG, GRBG, or RGGB.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital single-lens reflex camera</span> Digital cameras combining the parts of a single-lens reflex camera and a digital camera back

A digital single-lens reflex camera is a digital camera that combines the optics and mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a solid-state image sensor and digitally records the images from the sensor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Image noise</span> Visible interference in an image

Image noise is random variation of brightness or color information in images, and is usually an aspect of electronic noise. It can be produced by the image sensor and circuitry of a scanner or digital camera. Image noise can also originate in film grain and in the unavoidable shot noise of an ideal photon detector. Image noise is an undesirable by-product of image capture that obscures the desired information. Typically the term “image noise” is used to refer to noise in 2D images, not 3D images.

Bryce Edward Bayer was an American scientist who invented the Bayer filter pattern, which is used in most modern color digital cameras. He has been called "the maestro without whom photography as we know wouldn't have been the same."

Demosaicing, also known as color reconstruction, is a digital image processing algorithm used to reconstruct a full color image from the incomplete color samples output from an image sensor overlaid with a color filter array (CFA) such as a Bayer filter. It is also known as CFA interpolation or debayering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Three-CCD camera</span> Camera whose imaging system uses three separate charge-coupled devices

A three-CCD (3CCD) camera is a camera whose imaging system uses three separate charge-coupled devices (CCDs), each one receiving filtered red, green, or blue color ranges. Light coming in from the lens is split by a beam-splitter prism into three beams, which are then filtered to produce colored light in three color ranges or "bands". The system is employed by high quality still cameras, telecine systems, professional video cameras and some prosumer video cameras.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital photography</span> Photography with a digital camera

Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is stored as a computer file ready for further digital processing, viewing, electronic publishing, or digital printing. It is a form of digital imaging based on gathering visible light.

An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to form an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves into signals, small bursts of current that convey the information. The waves can be light or other electromagnetic radiation. Image sensors are used in electronic imaging devices of both analog and digital types, which include digital cameras, camera modules, camera phones, optical mouse devices, medical imaging equipment, night vision equipment such as thermal imaging devices, radar, sonar, and others. As technology changes, electronic and digital imaging tends to replace chemical and analog imaging.

An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor, which was invented by Peter J.W. Noble in 1968, where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) active-pixel sensor, MOS field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) are used as amplifiers. There are different types of APS, including the early NMOS APS and the now much more common complementary MOS (CMOS) APS, also known as the CMOS sensor. CMOS sensors are used in digital camera technologies such as cell phone cameras, web cameras, most modern digital pocket cameras, most digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs), mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras (MILCs), and lensless imaging for, e.g., blood cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Color filter array</span> Pattern of color filters over an image sensor

In digital imaging, a color filter array (CFA), or color filter mosaic (CFM), is a mosaic of tiny color filters placed over the pixel sensors of an image sensor to capture color information.

The Sony DCR-VX1000 was a DV camcorder released by Sony in 1995. It was the first to use both the MiniDV tape format and three-CCD color processing technology—boasting twice the horizontal resolution of VHS and triple the color bandwidth of single-CCD cameras. It was also the first consumer camcorder with the ability to transfer video information via Firewire to an ordinary Windows or Macintosh computer. Together with the rival Canon XL1 and shorter-lived "budget" three-CCD DV models like the Canon GL1 and Sony DCR-TRV900, the VX1000 revolutionized desktop video production in the late 1990s, delivering quality comparable to then-dominant analog Betacam hardware at a fraction of the cost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Image processor</span> Specialized digital signal processor used for image processing

An image processor, also known as an image processing engine, image processing unit (IPU), or image signal processor (ISP), is a type of media processor or specialized digital signal processor (DSP) used for image processing, in digital cameras or other devices. Image processors often employ parallel computing even with SIMD or MIMD technologies to increase speed and efficiency. The digital image processing engine can perform a range of tasks. To increase the system integration on embedded devices, often it is a system on a chip with multi-core processor architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kodak DCS</span> Digital camera and camera back series

The Kodak Digital Camera System is a series of digital single-lens reflex cameras and digital camera backs that were released by Kodak in the 1990s and 2000s, and discontinued in 2005. They are all based on existing 35mm film SLRs from Nikon, Canon and Sigma. The range includes the original Kodak DCS, the first commercially available digital SLR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Brault</span> American chemist and inventor

Albert Thomas Brault is an American chemist who invented the fabrication process used for the first integral color image sensors. The curator of the Technology Collection at the George Eastman Museum, Todd Gustavson, has stated that "the color sensor technology developed by Albert Brault has revolutionized all forms of color photography. These color sensors are now ubiquitous in products such as smart phone cameras, digital cameras and camcorders, digital cinema cameras, medical cameras, automobile cameras, and drones".

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Integral color filter arrays for solid state imagers, 1976 International Electron Devices Meeting, Washington D.C." IEEE Xplore. doi:10.1109/IEDM.1976.189067. S2CID   35103154 . Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Dillon, Peter (1978). "Color Imaging System Using a Single CCD Area Array, IEEE Journals of Solid-State Circuits, February 1978". IEEE Xplore. doi:10.1109/JSSC.1978.1050992. S2CID   41078706 . Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Overton, Gail (2019-04-07). "Color sensing technology wins Rochester scientists Technology Emmy Awards". Laser Focus World. Retrieved 2023-12-23.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Memmott, Jim (September 26, 2021). "Take photos with your phone? You have these two Kodak researchers to thank". Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  5. ↑ US3962725A,Lemke, James U.&Lentz, Robert A.,"Magnetic-tape cartridge-loaded portable video camera using prerecorded timing signals to control the video time base",issued 1976-06-08
  6. ↑ Boyle, W. S.; Smith, G. E. (1970). "Charge coupled semiconductor devices". Bell System Technical Journal. 49 (4): 587–593. Bibcode:1970BSTJ...49..587B. doi:10.1002/j.1538-7305.1970.tb01790.x . Retrieved 2023-12-22.
  7. ↑ Sharma, Gaurav (2003). Digital Color Imaging Handbook (1st ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press. pp. 730–731.
  8. 1 2 Parulski, Kenneth (1985). "Color filters and processing alternatives for one-chip cameras, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices". IEEE Xplore. doi:10.1109/T-ED.1985.22133. S2CID   9008653 . Retrieved 2023-12-22.
  9. ↑ US3971065A,Bayer, Bryce E.,"Color imaging array",issued 1976-07-20
  10. ↑ US4047203A,Dillon, Peter L. P.,"Color imaging array",issued 1977-09-06
  11. ↑ US4081277A,Brault, Albert Thomas; Light, William Andrew& Martin, Thomas William,"Method for making a solid-state color imaging device having an integral color filter and the device",issued 1978-03-28
  12. 1 2 Dillon, Peter (1978). "Fabrication and Performance of Color Filter Arrays for Solid-State Imagers, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, February 1978". IEEE Xplore. doi:10.1109/JSSC.1978.1050991. S2CID   38593079 . Retrieved 2023-12-13.
  13. ↑ US4176373A,Dillon, Peter L. P.&Bayer, Bryce E.,"Signal processing for discrete-sample-type-color-video signal",issued 1979-11-27
  14. ↑ Lukac, Rastislav, ed. (2008-09-09). Single-Sensor Imaging: Methods and Applications for Digital Cameras (1st ed.). Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press. pp. 183–209. ISBN   978-1-4200-5452-1.
  15. 1 2 US4016597A,Dillon, Peter L. P.&DePalma, James J.,"Color video camera with selectively expanded sensitivity",issued 1977-04-05
  16. ↑ Sharma, Gaurav (2003). Digital Color Imaging Handbook (1st ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press. pp. 738–739.
  17. ↑ "10 Best Camcorders With Night Vision In The US - Christmas 2023". Best Products Reviews.
  18. ↑ "70th Award Recipients – The Emmys". theemmys.tv. Retrieved 2023-12-23.
  19. ↑ "IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award". ETHW. 2022-02-09. Retrieved 2023-12-23.
  20. ↑ "ICCE 2022 | Official Website". icce.org. Retrieved 2023-12-23.
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