Extension of the Dynamic Range in the CMOS Active Pixel Sensor Using a Stacked Photodiode and Feedback Structure

Abstract This paper presents an extension of the dynamic range in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) active pixel sensor(APS) using a stacked photodiode and feedback structure. The proposed APS is composed of two additional MOSFETs and stackedP+/N-well/P-sub photodiodes as compared with a conventional APS. Using the proposed technique, the sensor can improve the spectralresponse and dynamic range. The spectral response is improved using an additional stacked P+/N-well photodiode, and the dynamicrange is increased using the feedback structure. Although the size of the pixel is slightly larger than that of a conventional three-transistorAPS, control of the dynamic range is much easier than that of the conventional methods using the feedback structure. The simulation andmeasurement results for the proposed APS demonstrate a wide dynamic range feature. The maximum dynamic range of the proposedsensor is greater than 103 dB. The designed circuit is fabricated by the 0.35-um 2-poly 4-metal standard CMOS process, and itscharacteristics are evaluated.

[1]  Jang-Kyoo Shin,et al.  A Wide Dynamic Range CMOS Image Sensor Based on a Pseudo 3-Transistor Active Pixel Sensor Using Feedback Structure , 2012 .

[2]  Noriko Ide,et al.  A Wide DR and Linear Response CMOS Image Sensor With Three Photocurrent Integrations in Photodiodes, Lateral Overflow Capacitors, and Column Capacitors , 2008, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits.

[3]  Y. Nemirovsky,et al.  Measurements and Simulations of Low Dark Count Rate Single Photon Avalanche Diode Device in a Low Voltage 180-nm CMOS Image Sensor Technology , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[4]  Steve Collins,et al.  Characterization and Simple Fixed Pattern Noise Correction in Wide Dynamic Range “Logarithmic” Imagers , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[5]  Jang-Kyoo Shin,et al.  Dual Sampling-Based CMOS Active Pixel Sensor with a Novel Correlated Double Sampling Circuit , 2012 .

[6]  Patrick Garda,et al.  A Review of the CMOS Buried Double Junction (BDJ) Photodetector and its Applications , 2008, Sensors.

[7]  E. Fossum,et al.  CMOS active pixel image sensors for highly integrated imaging systems , 1997, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits.

[8]  Oscar C. Au,et al.  Recent advances in high dynamic range imaging technology , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing.

[9]  Jang-Kyoo Shin,et al.  Wide dynamic range CMOS active pixel sensor using a stacked-photodiode structure , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference Proceedings.

[10]  Jong-Ho Park,et al.  A 142dB Dynamic Range CMOS Image Sensor with Multiple Exposure Time Signals , 2005, 2005 IEEE Asian Solid-State Circuits Conference.

[11]  Suat U. Ay,et al.  Boosted CMOS APS Pixel Readout for Ultra Low-Voltage and Low-Power Operation , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs.

[12]  M. Ikebe,et al.  A Wide-Dynamic-Range Compression Image Sensor With Negative-Feedback Resetting , 2007, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[13]  Kwangho Yoon,et al.  Single-chip CMOS image sensor for mobile applications , 2002, 2002 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of Technical Papers (Cat. No.02CH37315).

[14]  Chong-Min Kyung,et al.  Dynamic-Range Widening in a CMOS Image Sensor Through Exposure Control Over a Dual-Photodiode Pixel , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[15]  D. Park,et al.  A Wide Dynamic-Range CMOS Image Sensor Using Self-Reset Technique , 2007, IEEE Electron Device Letters.

[16]  Deyuan Gao,et al.  Temporal noise analysis and optimizing techniques for 4-T pinned photodiode active pixel sensor , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Signal Processing, Communications and Computing (ICSPCC).

[17]  Joaquim Salvi,et al.  Review of CMOS image sensors , 2006, Microelectron. J..