Development of Gentle Slope Light Guide Structure in a 3.4 μm Pixel Pitch Global Shutter CMOS Image Sensor with Multiple Accumulation Shutter Technology

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 17; no. 12; p. 2860
• Main Authors: Sekine, Hiroshi, Kobayashi, Masahiro, Onuki, Yusuke, Kawabata, Kazunari, Tsuboi, Toshiki, Matsuno, Yasushi, Takahashi, Hidekazu, Inoue, Shunsuke, Ichikawa, Takeshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 09.12.2017; MDPI
• Subjects: Accumulation; CMOS; Digital cameras; Global Shutter; Image degradation; Incident light; Light; Light Guide; Parasitic Light Sensitivity; Pixels; Sensitivity; Parasitic Light Sensitivity; Global Shutter; Sensitivity; Light Guide
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s17122860

CMOS image sensors (CISs) with global shutter (GS) function are strongly required in order to avoid image degradation. However, CISs with GS function have generally been inferior to the rolling shutter (RS) CIS in performance, because they have more components. This problem is remarkable in small pixel pitch. The newly developed 3.4 µm pitch GS CIS solves this problem by using multiple accumulation shutter technology and the gentle slope light guide structure. As a result, the developed GS pixel achieves 1.8 e temporal noise and 16,200 e full well capacity with charge domain memory in 120 fps operation. The sensitivity and parasitic light sensitivity are 28,000 e /lx·s and -89 dB, respectively. Moreover, the incident light angle dependence of sensitivity and parasitic light sensitivity are improved by the gentle slope light guide structure.