A SPAD-Based QVGA Image Sensor for Single-Photon Counting and Quanta Imaging

作者：Dutton Neale A W^*; Gyongy Istvan; Parmesan Luca; Gnecchi Salvatore; Calder Neil; Rae Bruce R; Pellegrini Sara; Grant Lindsay A; Henderson Robert K

来源：IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 2016, 63(1): 189-196.

DOI：10.1109/TED.2015.2464682

• Charge transfer amplifier (CTA) counter
• CMOS single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD)
• quanta image sensor (QIS)
• single-photon counting (SPC)
• switched current source (SCS) counter

A CMOS single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD)-based quarter video graphics array image sensor with 8- mu m pixel pitch and 26.8% fill factor (FF) is presented. The combination of analog pixel electronics and scalable shared-well SPAD devices facilitates high-resolution, high-FF SPAD imaging arrays exhibiting photon shot-noise-limited statistics. The SPAD has 47 counts/s dark count rate at 1.5 V excess bias (EB), 39.5% photon detection probability (PDP) at 480 nm, and a minimum of 1.1 ns dead time at 1 V EB. Analog single-photon counting imaging is demonstrated with maximum 14.2-mV/SPAD event sensitivity and 0.06e(-) minimum equivalent read noise. Binary quanta image sensor (QIS) 16-kframes/s real-time oversampling is shown, verifying single-photon QIS theory with 4.6x overexposure latitude and 0.168e(-) read noise.

• 出版日期2016-1