A low dark current and high quantum efficiency monolithic germanium-on-silicon CMOS imager technology for day and night imaging applications

Author

Aberg, I. ; Ackland, B. ; Beach, J.V. ; Godek, C. ; Johnson, R. ; King, C.A. ; Lattes, A. ; Neill, J.O. ; Pappas, S. ; Sriram, T.S. ; Rafferty, C.S.

Author_Institution

NoblePeak Vision Corp., Wakefield, MA, USA

fYear

2010

fDate

6-8 Dec. 2010

Abstract

A low noise, high quantum efficiency (QE) Ge photo diode was integrated in a standard 0.18 μm CMOS foundry process, enabling night imaging under moonless conditions in a high resolution CMOS image sensor (10 μm pitch, VGA). The Ge diode dark current measured at wafer probe (-45°C) in the imager chip is 25 fA per pixel and the pixel QE at λ=1.3 μm is 44% and 32% for best die at half and full VGA resolution respectively. To our knowledge this is the first large-scale integration of single crystal Ge diodes into a silicon product.

Keywords

CMOS image sensors; elemental semiconductors; germanium; photodiodes; silicon; CMOS foundry process; CMOS image sensor; CMOS imager technology; Ge-Si; dark current; day imaging applications; monolithic germanium-on-silicon technology; night imaging applications; photo diode; quantum efficiency; size 0.18 micron;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), 2010 IEEE International

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

ISSN

0163-1918

Print_ISBN

978-1-4424-7418-5

Electronic_ISBN

0163-1918

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEDM.2010.5703361

Filename

5703361