Glossary

APS: Active Pixel Sensor. A type of image sensor, mainly realized in CMOS technology, where each pixel has his own signal buffer.Top
ASIC: Application Specific Integrated CircuitTop
Aspect Ratio: The ratio of the visible-picture width to the height. Standard television and computers have an aspect ratio of 4:3(1.33). HDTV has aspects ratios of either 4:3 or 16:9(1.78). Additional aspect ratios like 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 are used in cinema.Top
AWAIBA: Name of an innovative design hause specialized on high dynamic range, high speed and minimal size and power image sensors in CMOS technology. AWAIBA is an artificial name, without any acronym or link to the company’s founders or technology.Top
Back Porch: The area of a composite video signal defined as the time between the end of the color burst and the start of active video. Also loosely used to mean the total time from the rising edge of sync to the start of active video.Top
Blanking Interval: There are horizontal and vertical blanking intervals. Horizontal blanking interval is the time period allocated for retrace of the signal from the right edge of the display back to the left edge to start another scan line. Vertical blanking interval is the time period allocated for retrace of the signal from the bottom back to the top to start another field or frame. Synchronizing signals occupy a portion of the blanking interval.Top
Blanking Level: Used to describe a voltage level (blanking level). The blanking level is the nominal voltage of a video waveform during the horizontal and vertical periods, excluding the more negative voltage sync tips.Top
Breezeway: The area of a composite video signal defined as the time between the rising edge of the sync pulse and the start of the color burst.Top
CAN: Controller Area NetworkTop
CCC: Car Communication ControlTop
CCD: Charge-Coupled Device is a type of image sensor. In effect, it is the “eye” of a camera. It is a device similar to a computer chip, which senses light focused on its surface, like electronic film. CCD is one of two main types of image sensor. The other type is CMOS. CCD sensors have historically provided better image quality, although the newest and best CMOS sensors match or exceed CCD quality. CCD sensors require some additional circuitry compared to CMOS sensors, which can have a minor negative impact on size, cost, and battery life in small devices.Top
Chroma: The color portion of a video signal. This term is sometimes incorrectly referred to as “chrominance,” which is the actual displayed color information.Top
CIS: CMOS Image Sensor. Sometimes also used for Contact Image Sensors, which are image sensors (mainly linear sensors) where the image is made without the need of a lens, because the object plain is very close to the image sensor.Top
Clamp: A circuit that forces a specific portion (either the back porch or the sync tip) of the video signal to a specific DC voltage, to restore the DC level. Also called “DC restore.” A black level clamp to ground circuit forces the back-porch voltage to be equal to zero volts. A peak clamp forces the sync-tip voltage to be equal to a specified voltage.Top
CMOS: Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor is a type of image sensor. In effect, it is the “eye” of a camera. It is a device similar to a computer chip, which senses light focused on its surface, like electronic film.
CMOS is one of two main types of image sensor. The other type is CCD. In the past, CCD image sensors consistently provided better image quality. But now some (though not all) of the newer and better CMOS sensors match and even exceed CCD quality. CMOS sensors include basic image-processing circuitry that CCD sensors do not. This gives devices with CMOS sensors an edge when it comes to size, cost, and battery life.Top
Color Bars: A standard video waveform used to test the calibration of a video system. It consists of a sequence of the six primary and secondary colors plus white with a standard amplitude and timing. The color-bar sequence is white, yellow, cyan, green, magenta, red, and blue. There are several amplitude standards, the most common being 75% amplitude (brightness) with 100% saturation (intensity of the color).Top
Color Burst: The color burst, also commonly called the “color sub carrier,” is 8 to 10 cycles of the color reference frequency. It is positioned between the rising edge of sync and the start of active video for a composite video signal.Top
color Saturation: The amplitude of the color modulation on a standard video signal. The larger the amplitude of this modulation, the more saturated (more intense) the colorTop
Color Sub Carrier: See color Burst.Top
Component Video: A three-wire video interface that carries the video information in its basic RGB components or luma (brightness) and two-color-difference signals.Top
Composite Video: A video signal that combines the luma (brightness), chroma (color), burst (color reference), and sync (horizontal and vertical synchronizing signals) into a single waveform carried on a single wire pair.Top
CPU: Central Processing UnitTop
Differential Gain: Important measurement parameter for composite video signals. Not applicable in Y/C or component signals. Differential gain is the amount of change in the color saturation (amplitude of the color modulation) for a change in low-frequency luma (brightness) amplitude. Closely approximated by measuring the change in the amplitude of a sine wave for a change in its DC level.Top
Differential Phase: Important measurement parameter for composite video signals. Not applicable in Y/C or component signals. Differential phase is the change in hue (phase of the color modulation) for a change in low- frequency luma (brightness) amplitude. Closely approximated by measuring the change in the phase of a sine wave for a change in its DC level.Top
DSP: Digital Signal ProcessorTop
ECU: Electronic Control UnitTop
EMC: Electromagnetic CompatibilityTop
EMVA1288: European Machine Vision Assotiation Standard Nr. 1288. A standard document unifying way’s to characterize and specify image sensor and camera data with focus on Machine Vision.Top
ESD: Electrostatic dischargeTop
Fields and Frames: A frame is one complete scan of a picture. In NTSC it consists of 525 horizontal scan lines. In interlaced scanning systems, a field is half of a frame; thus, two fields make a frame.Top
FLUSH reset image sensor: A high responsivity pixel architecture form AWAIBA that permits to use direct injection or common gate amplification in pixels, getting rid of image lag usually observed with response boosting techniques.Top
FMEA: Failure Mode and Effects AnalysisTop
FPGA: Field Programming Gate ArrayTop
Front Porch: The area of a composite video waveform between the end of the active video and the leading edge of sync.Top
Global Shutter: Way to operate a sensor such that all pixels are exposed to light simultaneously. Signal is stored in pixel until the pixel is addressed. As opposed to Rolling ShutterTop
Horizontal Blanking: See Blanking Level and Blanking Interval.Top
Horizontal Line Frequency: The inverse of the time (or period) for one horizontal scan line.Top
Interlaced Scan: The process whereby each frame of a picture is created by first scanning half of the lines and then scanning the second set of lines, which are interleaved between the first to complete the picture. Each half is referred to as a field. Two fields make a frame.Top
IRE: An arbitrary unit of measurement equal to 1/100 of the excursion from blanking to reference white level. In NTSC systems, 100 IRE equals 714mV and 1-volt p-p equals 140 IRE.Top
Lda: Portugese legal form. Limitada, equivalent to the German “GmbH”, or UK “Limited”Top
Luma: The monochrome or black-and-white portion of a video signal. This term is sometimes incorrectly called “luminance,” which refers to the actual displayed brightness.Top
LVDS: Low Voltage Differential SignalTop
Monochrome: The luma (brightness) portion of a video signal without the color information. Monochrome, commonly known as black-and-white, pre-dates current color television.Top
MROI imagesensor: A patented IP form AWAIBA that permits to set different exposure times for several sub window’s of a pixel array within one single exposure and readout cycle. Mainly used for imaging of high dynamic range and fast moving scenes. E.g. In automotive night vision or road sign recognition applications.Top
MTF: Modulation Transfer Function. A measure for the ability of an image sensor to resolve spatial frequencies. E.g. Indication how much contrast an image sensor will deliver if a stripe pattern of a certain period is projected on the pixel array.Top
MTBF: Mean Time Before FailureTop
NTSC: National Television Systems Committee. A group that established black-and-white television standards in the United States in 1941 and later added color in 1953. NTSC is used to refer to the systems and signals compatible with this specific color-modulation technique. Consists of quadrature-modulated color- difference signals added to the luma with a color sub carrier reference of 455/2 times the horizontal line rate, typically 3.579545MHz with an H rate of 15.75kHz. Commonly used in 525-line, 59.94Hz scanning systems.Top
PAL: Phase alternate line. PAL is used to refer to systems and signals that are compatible with this specific modulation technique. Similar to NTSC but uses sub carrier phase alternation to reduce the sensitivity to phase errors that would be displayed as color errors. Commonly used with 626-line, 50Hz scanning systems with a sub carrier frequency of 4.43362MHz.Top
PCB: Printed Circuit BoardTop
Pixel: Picture element. A pixel is the smallest piece of display detail that has a unique brightness and color. In a digital image, a pixel is an individual point in the image, represented by a certain number of bits to indicate the brightness. In an image sensor, a pixel is sensor site, representing the smallest part of image information resolvable.Top
Progressive Scan: The process whereby a picture is created by scanning all of the lines of a frame in one pass. See also Interlaced Scan. The process of converting from interlaced to progressive scan is called “line doubling.”Top
PSK: Phase Shift Keying, is a highly efficient modulation method. It is used to modulate information onto a carrier frequency.Top
RAM: Random Access MemoryTop
Raster: The collection of horizontal scan lines that makes up a picture on a display. A reference to it normally assumes that the sync elements of the signal are included.Top
Refresh Rate: See Vertical Frame Rate.Top
RGB: Stands for red, green, and blue. It is a component interface typically used in computer graphics systems.Top
Rolling Shutter: A way to control the timing of a image sensor frequently used in consumer CMOS image sensors. The exposure (integration) time is controlled by a slit aperture that scans over the pixel array. The consequence of this architecture is that pixels in different row’s are exposed at different times, which leads to artifacts in fast moving scenes, or with pulsed illumination.Top
S-Video: Commonly incorrectly used interchangeably with Y/C. See also Y/C. Technically, a magnetic-tape modulation format.Top
Setup: A reference black level 7.5% (7.5IRE) above blanking level in NTSC analogue systems. It is not used in PAL or digital or HDTV systems. In these systems, reference black is the same level as blanking.Top
SOP: Start Of ProductionTop
SRAM: Static Random Access MemoryTop
Sub carrier: See color Burst.Top
Sync Signals/Pulses: Sync signals, also known as sync pulses, are negative-going timing pulses in video signals that are used by video-processing or display devices to synchronize the horizontal and vertical portions of the display.Top
Vertical Blanking: See Blanking Level and Blanking Interval.Top
Vertical Field Frequency: The inverse of the time (or period) to produce one field of video (half of a frame). In NTSC it is 59.94Hz.Top
Vertical Frame Rate: The inverse of the time (or period) to produce one frame of video. Also called “refresh rate” or “vertical refresh rate.”Top
Video Bandwidth, Minimum: The minimum analogue bandwidth required to reproduce the smallest amount of detail contained in the video signal.Top
VSW: Video SwitchTop
Y Cr Cb: A digital component video interface. Y is the luma (brightness) portion, and Cr and Cb are the color-difference portions of the signal.Top
Y Pr Pb: An analogue-component video interface. Y is the luma (brightness) portion, and Pr and Pb are the color- difference portions of the signal. Typically used on high-end consumer video equipment.Top
Y/C: An analogue video interface in which the chroma (color) information is carried separately from the luma (brightness) and sync information. Two wire pairs are used, denoted Y and C or Y/C. Often incorrectly referred to as “S-video.”Top

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Glossary