Will CMOS imagers ever need ultra-high speed?

An increasing interest in new applications is driving significant research activity in the field of low-cost, ultra-high speed cameras. Such cameras must exhibit far smaller shutter time and jitter, while other properties, such as sensitivity, dynamic range, and linearity, may be traded off for speed. This tutorial paper attempts to determine when and where such trade-offs may be acceptable. Novel and conventional applications are presented for which technological advances in speed are justifiable. Implementation techniques for standard CMOS active pixel sensor technologies are outlined to enable such advances.