CMOS scanners

CMOS element

— optical elements CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor structure) are notable for the fact that they process the scanned image not gradually, line by line (like other types of photocells), but according to the “all image at once” principle. This gives some speed advantage, but not as big as one might think: it takes a lot of time to “decrypt” the data received from the sensor. Therefore, the main advantage of CMOS is not speed, but undemanding to operating conditions. For example, for scanning, it is not necessary to move the optical element evenly relative to the scanned material (or vice versa), which is very useful in the case of handheld and book scanners. Actually, it is in these categories that CMOS sensors are used most often.