Title :
A CMOS Image Sensor with a Buried-Channel Source Follower
Author :
Wang, Xinyang ; Snoeij, Martijn F. ; Rao, Padmakumar R. ; Mierop, Adri ; Theuwissen, Albert J P
Author_Institution :
Delft Univ. of Technol., Delft
Abstract :
This paper presents a CMOS image sensor with a pinned-photodiode 4T active-pixel design (APS) that uses a buried-channel source follower (BSF) as the in-pixel amplifier. A prototype of the image sensor has been fabricated in a 0.18mum CMOS process. Measurements show that compared to a regular imager with a standard nMOS transistor surface-mode source follower (SSF), the new pixel structure reduces dark random noise by more than 50% and improves output swing by almost 100%.
Keywords :
CMOS image sensors; photodiodes; CMOS image sensor; active-pixel design; buried-channel source follower; in-pixel amplifier; pinned-photodiode; size 0.18 micron; CMOS image sensors; CMOS technology; Charge transfer; Gaussian noise; Histograms; Image sensors; Noise measurement; Noise reduction; Pixel; Voltage;
Conference_Titel :
Solid-State Circuits Conference, 2008. ISSCC 2008. Digest of Technical Papers. IEEE International
Conference_Location :
San Francisco, CA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2010-0
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2011-7
DOI :
10.1109/ISSCC.2008.4523057
