An insect vision-based motion detection chip

The architectural and circuit design aspects of a mixed analog/digital very large scale integration (VLSI) motion detection chip based on models of the insect visual system are described, The chip comprises two one-dimensional 64-cell arrays as well as front-end analog circuitry for early visual processing and digital control circuits, Each analog processing cell comprises a photodetector, circuits for spatial averaging and multiplicative noise cancellation, differentiation, and thresholding. The operation and configuration of the analog cells is controlled by digital circuits, thus implementing a reconfigurable architecture which facilitates the evaluation of several newly designed analog circuits, The chip has been designed and fabricated in a 1.2-mu m CMOS process and occupies an area of 2 x 2 mm(2).