A Single-Photon Avalanche Diode in CMOS 0.5μm n-well process

Author

Bowei Zhang ; Zhenyu Li ; Zaghloul, Mona E.

fYear

2012

fDate

28-31 Oct. 2012

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

A Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) design solution that can be implemented in a low cost CMOS process, n-well 0.5μm process, is proposed. This SPAD design used the lateral diffusion of the n-wells to create a low n doping density area as the guard ring to prevent the premature breakdown at the edge of SPAD. Through the TCAD simulation and fabricated design characterization, we found the proper gap length between n-wells to create the guard ring that allows the SPAD to work in the Geiger Mode. The SPAD has dark count rate (DCR) of 750/Hz at 14.85V bias voltage without cooling and 60ns dead time.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; avalanche breakdown; avalanche photodiodes; diffusion; CMOS; DCR; Geiger mode; SPAD design; TCAD simulation; dark count rate; fabricated design characterization; frequency 750 Hz; guard ring; lateral diffusion; n-well process; premature breakdown; single photon avalanche diode; size 0.5 mum; voltage 14.85 V; CMOS integrated circuits; CMOS process; Electric breakdown; Junctions; Photonics; Semiconductor device modeling; Semiconductor process modeling; CMOS; Geiger Mode; SPAD; dark count rate; dead time; n-well process;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Sensors, 2012 IEEE

Conference_Location

Taipei

ISSN

1930-0395

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1766-6

Electronic_ISBN

1930-0395

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSENS.2012.6411333

Filename

6411333