Extension of the Dynamic Range using the Switching Operation of In-Pixel Inverter in Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor Image Sensors

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper proposes the extension of the dynamic range in complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors (CIS) using switching operation of in-pixel inverter. A CMOS inverter is integrated in each unit pixel of the proposed CIS for switching operations. The n+/p-substrate photodiode junction capacitances are added to each unit pixel. When the output voltage of the photodiode is less than half of the power supply voltage of the CMOS inverter, the output voltage of the CMOS inverter changes from 0 V to the power supply voltage. Hence, the output voltage of the CMOS inverter is adjusted by changing the supply voltage of the CMOS inverter. Thus, the switching point is adjusted according to light intensity when the supply voltage of the CMOS inverter changes. Switching operations are then performed because the CMOS inverter is integrated with in each unit pixel. The proposed CIS is composed of a pixel array, multiplexers, shift registers, and biasing circuits. The size of the proposed pixel is 10 μm × 10 μm. The number of pixels is 150 (H) × 220 (V). The proposed CIS was fabricated using a 0.18 μm 1-poly 6-metal CMOS standard process and its characteristics were experimentally analyzed.

참고문헌 (Reference)

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