13 Ultrafast Imaging in Standard (Bi)CMOS Technology Wilfried Uhring 1 and Martin Zlatanski 2 1 University of Strasbourg and CNRS 2 ABB Switzerland Ltd. 1 France 2 Switzerland 1. Introduction Around 1822, the French inventor Niépce made the first photographic image by the use of a camera obscura. He formed the image passing through the hole on a metal plate with a bitumen coating. After 8 hours of exposure, the bitumen on the illuminated sections of the plate was hardened. By washing the unhardened regions, a print of the observed scene appeared. After Niépce’s death in 1833, Daguerre worked on the improvement of the chemical process involving interaction of the plate with light. In 1839 he announced the invention of a new process using silver on a copper plate. This invention reduced the exposure time to 30 minutes and denotes the birth of modern photography. During the following years, improvement on the photographic processes led to increased sensitivity and allowed shorter exposure times. In 1878, Muybridge gave an answer to a popular question at this time: whether all four hooves of a horse are off the ground at the same time during a gallop. By taking the first high-speed sequence of 12 pictures, each picture spaced about 400 ms from the neighbouring one with an exposure time of less than 500 μs. In 1882, George Eastman patented the roll film, which led to the acquisition of the first motion pictures. Four years later, a student of Daguerre, Le Prince, patented a Method of, and apparatus for, producing animated pictures. Through its 16 lens receiver, as he called his camera, and by the use of an Eastman Kodak paper film, Le Prince filmed the first moving picture sequences known as the Roundhay Garden Scene, which was shot at 12 frames per second (fps) and lasted less than 2 seconds. Two years later, Edison presented the Kinetoscope, a motion picture device capable of acquiring sequences at up to 40 fps. It creates the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film filled with sequential images over a light source through a mechanical shutter. In 1904, the Austrian physicist Musger patented the Kinematograph mit Optischem Ausgleich der Bildwanderung which is capable of recording fast transients and projecting them in slow motion. In acquisition mode, the light is turned off and a rotating mirror, projecting them in slow motion. In acquisition mode, a rotating mirror mechanically coupled to the film shifting mechanism, reflects images onto the film. During the projection, the light is turned on and the same operation is carried out, but at a much slower rate. This high-speed photographing principle was used during the First World War by the German company Ernemann Werke AG to develop the Zeitlupe, a 500 fps camera used mainly for ballistic purposes. In 1926, Heape and Grylls constructed Heape and