A high-sensitivity CMOS image sensor with gain-adaptive column amplifiers

Author

Sakakibara, Masaki ; Kawahito, Shoji ; Handoko, Dwi ; Nakamura, Nobuo ; Satoh, Hiroki ; Higashi, Mizuho ; Mabuchi, Keiji ; Sumi, Hirofumi

Author_Institution

Res. Inst. of Electron., Shizuoka Univ., Hamamatsu, Japan

Volume

40

Issue

5

fYear

2005

fDate

5/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1147

Lastpage

1156

Abstract

A high-sensitivity CMOS image sensor using gain-adaptive column amplifiers is presented and tested. The use of high gain for the column amplifier reduces input-referred random noise, and when coupled with a column-based digital noise cancellation technique, also reduces fixed pattern noise. An experimental application of the circuit using 0.25-μm CMOS technology with pinned photodiodes gave an rms random noise of 263 μV and an rms fixed pattern noise of 50 μV.

Keywords

CMOS image sensors; amplifiers; circuit noise; random noise; 0.25 micron; 263 muV; 50 muV; CMOS technology; column-based digital noise cancellation; fixed pattern noise reduction; gain-adaptive column amplifiers; high-sensitivity CMOS image sensor; input-referred random noise; low readout noise; pinned photodiodes; rms fixed pattern noise; rms random noise; CMOS image sensors; CMOS technology; Circuit noise; Image sensors; Low-noise amplifiers; Noise cancellation; Noise level; Noise reduction; Photodiodes; Semiconductor device noise; CMOS image sensors; column amplifier; gain-adaptive amplifier; low readout noise;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2005.845969

Filename

1425722