A Low-Noise High-Frame-Rate 1-D Decoding Readout Architecture for Stacked Image Sensors

作者：Xhakoni Adi^*; Le Thai Ha; Gielen Georges G E

来源：IEEE Sensors Journal, 2014, 14(6): 1966-1973.

DOI：10.1109/JSEN.2014.2307792

• Image sensor
• UHDTV
• dynamic range
• low noise
• high frame rate
• 3-D integration
• stacked
• high resolution
• ADC
• incremental Sigma Delta

The continuously increasing array resolution of CMOS imagers poses a great challenge in combining high-frame-rate and low light detection in the same sensor. To cope with this, parallel readout architectures are needed. This paper proposes a readout architecture for 8K stacked image sensors, which uses a novel 1D decoding readout based on block-of-pixels and incremental-sigma-delta ADCs. The proposed 1D decoding system reduces the control lines of the pixels and allows a simpler decoding, an increased parallelism, and an improved robustness over process yield. The experimental results from a test chip implemented in a standard CIS technology show that at 10 mu m pixel pitch, the proposed readout architecture can achieve a high-frame-rate of 730 frames/s and a low read noise of 1.4 e(-). In a real stacked implementation, the frame rate can further increase to about 960 frames/s at 8K resolution, at the cost of a slight increase in thermal noise by 14 mu V.

• 出版日期2014-6