APS design alternatives in 0.18μm CMOS image sensor technology

This paper presents a chip designed for the purpose of evaluating different design alternatives in a 0.18 mum CMOS Image Sensor Technology (CIS) for Active Pixel Sensor (APS) based vision applications. CIS technology improves characteristics such as sensitivity, dark current and noise, that are strongly layout dependent. It also allows the use of special structures, such as color light filters and microlenses. This chip includes a set of pixel architectures where different parameters have been modified: layout of active diffusion, threshold voltage of the source follower transistor and the use of microlenses. Besides, structures to study the influence of crosstalk between pixels have been incorporated.