IEDM 2013 program has been published and has just two papers on image sensors:
27.3 High Performance Amorphous Metal-Oxide Semiconductors Thin-Film Passive and Active Pixel Sensors
R. Zhang, L. Bie, T.-C.Fung*, J. Kanicki, University of Michigan, *Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Inc.
"In this paper, for the first time, we report on high performance a-IGZO TFTs based passive pixel sensor (PPS) and active pixel sensor (APS) circuits. Experimental results show that single-TFT PPS with a pitch length of 50µm achieved a signal charge gain approaching to unity (Gain=0.93) under a fast readout time of 20µs and a dynamic range of 40dB. APS based on three a-IGZO TFTs established a high dynamic range, which is more than 60dB. In addition, 2-TFTs half active pixel sensor (H-APS) testing circuits are also used to investigate the voltage gain properties for APS in this work."
27.4 Three-dimensional Structures for High Saturation Signals and Crosstalk Suppression in 1.20 µm Pixel Back-Illuminated CMOS Image Sensor
T. Shinohara, K. Watanabe, S. Arakawa, H. Kawashima, A. Kawashima, T. Abe, T. Yanagita, K. Ohta, Y. Inada, M. Onizuka, H. Nakayama, Y. Tateshita, T. Morikawa, K. Ohno, D. Sugimoto, S. Kadomura, T. Hirayama, Sony Semiconductor
"We present three-dimensional structures, vertical transfer gate and buried shielding metal that can be applied to our latest 1/2.3” 1.20um 20M pixels back-illuminated CMOS image sensor. New pixel design and process exhibited 60% higher saturation signals and 50% lower crosstalk without any degradation in white blemish and dark current."
It is too bad that the innovations in sub-diffraction limit pixels (e.g. 0.9 um) are not being reported at IEDM by the companies doing the work, except Sony. Where is Samsung, Toshiba, Aptina, Omnivision, ST Micro, etc.? Perhaps the IEDM program committee needs to be more aggressive in soliciting good papers! I don't believe IISW pre-empted all the work currently going on, although we did get some fine papers last June.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, please note that one of our colleagues will receive a nice award at the IEDM. Perhaps that will be a separate blog post!