Fault Tolerant Active Pixel Sensors in 0.18 and 0.35 Micron Technologies

A fault tolerant active pixel sensor (FTAPS) has been designed and fabricated to correct for point defects that occur in CMOS image sensors both at manufacturing and over the lifetime of the sensor. For some time it has been known that fabrication of CMOS image sensors in processes less than 0.35mum would generate significant performance changes, yet imagers are being fabricated in 0.18mum technology or smaller. Therefore the characteristics of the FTAPS are presented for pixels fabricated in both a standard 0.18mum and 0.35mum CMOS process and compared for consistency