Title :
eLeNA: A Parametric CMOS Active-Pixel Sensor for the Evaluation of Reset Noise Reduction Architectures
Author :
Anaxagoras, Thalis ; Kent, Paul ; Allinson, Nigel ; Turchetta, Renato ; Pickering, Tim ; Maneuski, Dzmitry ; Blue, Andrew ; O´Shea, Val
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electron. & Electr. Eng., Univ. of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Abstract :
We present a novel complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) active-pixel sensor imager that incorporates different reset schemes to achieve lower reset noise levels. The sensor, eLeNA, features a 448 × 512 array with a pixel pitch of 15 μm, fabricated using a 0.18- μm CMOS process. Fourteen sections and five different reset methods were employed. Without using pinned diodes, we implanted structures for correlated double sampling. A noise of 6 e- is measured with a conversion gain of 49 μV/e-. We will discuss various applications for the reset method that achieved the best overall performance, considering leakage current and read noise.
Keywords :
CCD image sensors; CMOS integrated circuits; noise; complementary metal oxide semiconductor active pixel sensor imager; eLeNA; leakage current; noise reduction; parametric CMOS active pixel sensor; size 0.18 mum; size 15 mum; CMOS image sensors; CMOS process; Diodes; Gain measurement; Noise level; Noise measurement; Noise reduction; Sampling methods; Sensor arrays; Sensor phenomena and characterization; kTC; active-pixel sensor (APS); correlated double sampling (CDS); low noise;
Journal_Title :
Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TED.2010.2052418
