CMOS Image Sensors

Objective

The market demand for electronic image sensors, and particularly CMOS compatible, is in continuous growth. There is also a big demand for CMOS compatibility in various fields like Terahertz (THz) imaging.

Over the last decade, mobile handset and digital cameras occupied the biggest part of the market and fuelled the development of CMOS image sensors. Markets like medical, security, industrial vision, defence or space are expected to grow and increase the demand for more sensitive CMOS image sensors operating in poor light conditions. Digital cameras users are also seeking for better qualiy images.  For decades charge-coupled devices (CCDs) have been the first choice technology in terms of sensitivity by offering the best noise performance. But the development of pinned photo diodes also known as buried photo diodes increased dramatically the noise performance of CMOS image sensors and made them more attractive compared to CCD technology thanks to their lower cost, more on-chip functionalities, and higher data rates.

The objective of this research is to enhance sensitive CMOS image sensors performance through circuit techniques and device optimisations.

 

Directions of research

The ICLAB research focuses on low noise active CMOS pixel sensors