Vertically integrated sensors for advanced imaging applications

A thin film on ASIC (TFA) image sensor is fabricated depositing an amorphous silicon thin-film detector onto a CMOS ASIC. With regards to advanced imaging systems, TFA provides enhanced performance and more flexibility than conventional technologies. Extensive on-chip signal processing is feasible, as well as small pixels for high resolution imagers. Two new TFA imager prototypes have recently been fabricated. High-resolution image sensor (HIRISE II) with 1024/spl times/128 pixels is an active pixel sensor suited for digital photography. Local autoadaptiver sensor (LARS II) with 368/spl times/256 pixels splits the illumination information into two signals, thereby providing a dynamic range of more than 120 dB, as required by automotive applications. Both prototypes include correlated double sampling and double delta sampling for efficient suppression of fixed pattern noise.