Contact image sensor (CIS)
From The Glossary of Digital Photography
A sensor used in scanners to replace CCDs. Contact image sensors are placed very close—nearly touching—to the object being scanned. This sensor is made up of a linear array of detectors with LEDs as the light source. It has a lower power requirement than do CCDs, such that scanners can be smaller and lighter, as well as less expensive. In some cases it can even run off of the power available on a USB port, thus needing no external power. Recently the quality of these sensors has improved to the level of CCD-based scanners. See also scanner
