Color Performance of 0.8 μm CMOS Image Sensor with CMY Color Filters

Modern digital cameras capture images with a subsampling method via mosaic color filter array (CFA). Of particular interest is the CFA with Cyan-Magenta-Yellow (CMY) color filters. Despite the improvement of the sensitivity, images reconstructed from CMY CFA usually suffer from lower color fidelity compared to the conventional Red-Green-Blue (RGB) color filters. In this paper, we proposed a CMY CFA with novel spectral sensitivities (CMY2.0), which were carefully designed to overcome the shortcomings of previous CMY CFA (CMY1.0). A CMY CMOS image sensor (CIS) with such optimized spectral sensitivities is then realized in order to evaluate the color performance and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). As a result, the camera equipped with the CMY CFA with proposed spectral sensitivities (CMY2.0) features both an improved sensitivity and a high color fidelity, which is suitable for a wide range of applications, such as low-light photography, under-screen cameras and automotive cameras.