The TC215 is a full-frame charge-coupled-device (CCD) image sensor that provides very high-resolution image acquisition for image-processing applications such as robotic vision, medical X-ray analysis, and metrology. The image format measures 12 mm horizontally by 12.216 mm vertically; the image-area diagonal is 17.2 mm. The image-area pixels are 12-m square. The image area contains 1018 active lines with 1000 active pixels per line. Six additional dark reference lines give a total of 1024 lines in the image area, and 24 additional dark reference pixels per line give a total of 1024 pixels per horizontal line. The full-frame image sensor should be used with a shutter or with strobed illumination to prevent smearing of the image during readout. To prepare the imaging area for image capture, the photoelectric charge that has accumulated in the image pixels can be transferred into the clearing drain in one millisecond. After image capture (integration time), the readout is accomplished by transferring the charge, one line at a time, into two serial registers, each of which contains 512 data elements and 12 dummy elements. The typical serial-register clocking rate is 10 megapixels per second. Operating the TC215 at the typical data rate of one field per frame generates video output at a continuous 15 frames per second. Gated floating-diffusion detection structures are used with each serial register to convert charge to signal voltage. External reset allows the application of off-chip correlated clamp sample-and-hold amplifiers for low-noise performance. To provide high output-drive capability, both outputs are buffered by low-noise, two-stage, source-follower amplifiers. These two output signals can provide a data rate of 20 megapixels per second when combined off chip. At room temperature, the readout noise is 55 electrons and a minimum dynamic range of 60 dB is available.