High Speed and High Resolution Contact-Type Image Sensor Using an Amorphous Silicon Photodetector Array

A contact-type image sensor has been developed with 16 elements/mm resolution and 0.8 ms/line scanning speed. This surpasses all previously reported devices of this type. These features are achieved by a newly developed highly integrated low noise hybrid circuit technology and a novel photodetector structure. This sensor is very compact with 3456 picture elements in a 216 mm active length. The reason why previous sensors had low speed, how this high performance sensor has been developed, and what remains to be improved is discussed.