Global shutter-mesh architecture with surround-boosted driving scheme for time-of-flight depth sensors

Presented is an architecture with mesh-structured electronic shutters and surround shutter drivers with positive/negative boosting to enhance the depth accuracy in three-dimensional (3D) depth sensors with a time-of-flight (TOF) measurement scheme. High-frequency modulation in the TOF scheme degrades the charge-transfer efficiency in high-resolution sensors because of the large parasitic resistance and the capacitance of the electronic shutters and shutter lines. This degradation suppresses modulation contrast, which induces depth errors. The global shutter-mesh architecture and surround-boosted driving scheme is implemented for high-modulation contrast in large-format depth sensors with a 1280 × 960 resolution.