Bulk micromachined image-forwarding mirror array for feature extraction VLSI sensor system

Intelligent image sensor array system is creating an exciting research field for applications such as smart image recognition. Distributed cells architecture is often adopted: the cell consists of a photodiode sensor and some information processing circuit. The cells are physically wired with their neighboring cells to perform some calculations such as filtering and edge detection. Here all the VLSI designers encounter the wiring bottleneck problem. The amount of wires explodes with increase of searching area. This problem not only imposes to the designers an enormous headache. It also shows a theoretical limit that VLSI can never imitate creatures; the organs such as eyes and brains have processing element in 2-D array; however, wiring is 3 dimensional thus solving the wiring bottleneck. The authors propose a new method to solve the problem. In this system, a movable mirror array will be integrated over the VLSI image processor. In grace of the mirror array, the incident image can directly be forwarded to their neighboring cells. The cells can capture images at neighbors in time series. This solution is profited by the nature that electrical circuit is much faster than living cells in the order of magnitude; the speediness of the electrical circuit is used for time-domain image sampling over a large area.