HDR cameras live for a world where "images" are increasingly sensitive

     In social media circles, there is a throwaway phrase: "No picture, no truth." While this isn't a serious situation, it hints at how visual capture and evidence are becoming more important in the modern, digitally connected world than they were just a few years ago. Applications such as body cameras, dashcams and security cameras, which are more widely used in industrial and private homes, are the main drivers.

     In fact, we can see moving images/video recordings in many aspects of our lives. Although the tachograph has not yet become the standard equipment of the vehicle, in order to ensure that they can prove that they have not made mistakes and avoid being unprotected by insurance, drivers generally choose to install tachograph in the later stage in order to record traffic accidents or just record general bad driving behavior. Motorcyclists and cyclists are also using video cameras, not only for playback entertainment, but also increasingly as a way to capture evidence so that relevant evidence can be captured in the event of a "collision" with a car.

     Even in the professional world, recording everyday events is becoming more common. First responders, especially police officers, are equipped with body cameras to record events around them, in order to demonstrate to internal oversight agencies and even the courts that they are strictly following procedures and policies.

     One thing that all of the above use cases have in common is that the lighting conditions are likely not good enough to capture high-quality video. If we think of the various traffic accidents and incidents requiring police intervention, we will find that they usually occur in poor lighting or extremely bright areas, such as streets or safety lighting, or in total darkness. This means that obtaining high-quality video evidence can be difficult. There are other factors that can also make video quality poor, such as pitch black, fog, rain or sun glare.

     In order to improve video quality, camera technology must be improved to be able to faithfully record scene conditions in very dark or very light environments. On the technical side, this means that the camera must be capable of high dynamic range (HDR) recording. Fortunately, one of our newest digital image sensors coming to market excels in HDR capture. The AR0239 is a new 1/2.7 inch 2.3 megapixel (Mp)CMOS digital image sensor with an effective image cable array of 1936Hx1188V. It is capable of capturing very sharp digital images in challenging bright and low light.

     The AR0239 is HiSPi/MiPi compatible, and key features include excellent low-light performance, enhanced near-infrared (NIR) quantum efficiency (QE), and the ability to capture the high dynamic range scenes described above. In addition, thanks to a frame rate of 90fps, the sensor is able to capture fast-moving objects common in target applications and record crisp 1080p video. The highly sensitive 3μmx3μm backlighting (BSI) cable in the AR0239 uses ON Semiconductor's DR-PixTM technology, which improves sensitivity by approximately 21% and QE by 10% compared to previous devices. The sensor also features a variety of advanced camera features such as binning and array frame selection, and an on-chip analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for easy use with 10 - and 12-bit architectures.