发表机构
University of Tennessee; Purdue University; University of Pennsylvania（田纳西大学; 普渡大学; 宾夕法尼亚大学）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
本文提出STEMPix像素传感器，通过两层结构结合像素级时间与相邻像素空间信息生成3位LEDC，经HSPICE仿真验证其性能优异，可为边缘移动感知系统提供紧凑可扩展的前端表示。
AI 中文摘要
本文提出了一种时空边缘移动方向像素（STEMPix），用于在CMOS兼容的图像传感器阵列内部生成紧凑的方向感知边缘移动信息。该设计针对局部边界移动比全帧强度重建更重要的专用传感应用，无需传输完整的多位帧进行外部处理，STEMPix通过结合像素级时间变化信息与相邻像素的空间边缘信息，生成3位局部边缘方向编码（LEDC）。我们采用两层结构设计该架构，将光电二极管层与计算层分离，以在容纳额外的阵列内处理电路的同时保持光收集面积。通过HSPICE瞬态仿真对所提出的电路进行评估，估计的实现水平间距为1.73μm，垂直间距为2.36μm，几何填充因子为95.47%；在代表性边缘移动场景下，每次LEDC操作的平均有源开关能量为0.465 fJ。STEMPix的操作还支持全局快门捕获和动态阈值调整，这些结果表明STEMPix可为边缘移动感知传感系统提供紧凑且可扩展的前端表示。
英文摘要
This paper proposes a spatio-temporal edge-movement direction pixel (STEMPix) for generating compact direction-aware edge movement information inside a CMOS-compatible image sensor array. The proposed design targets specialized sensing applications where local boundary movement is more important than full-frame intensity reconstruction. Instead of transferring full multi-bit frames for external processing, STEMPix generates a 3-bit local edge direction code (LEDC) by combining pixel-level temporal change information with neighboring-pixel spatial edge information. We design the architecture using a two-tier organization, where the photodiode layer is separated from the computation layer to preserve light-collection area while accommodating the additional in-array processing circuitry. The proposed circuit is evaluated through HSPICE transient simulations. The estimated implementation achieves a horizontal pitch of 1.73 μm, a vertical pitch of 2.36 μm, and a geometric fill factor of 95.47%. The average active switching energy is 0.465 fJ per LEDC operation across representative edge-movement cases. The proposed STEMPix operation also supports global-shutter capture and dynamic thresholding. These results indicate that STEMPix can provide a compact and scalable front-end representation for edge-movement-aware sensing systems.
