A Deep Sub-Electron Temporal Noise CMOS Image Sensor with Adjustable sinc-type Filter to Achieve Photon Counting Capability

Journal article (2021)

Authors

L. Han Electronic Instrumentation - EEMCS
A.J.P.A.M. Theuwissen Harvest Imaging, Belgium, Electronic Instrumentation - EEMCS
Research Group
Electronic Instrumentation (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2021 L. Han, A.J.P.A.M. Theuwissen
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1109/LSSC.2021.3089364
Photon counting CMOS image sensor (CIS) Sinc-type filter Noise distribution Ultralow noise
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Published Date

2021

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Microelectronics

Research Group

Electronic Instrumentation

Abstract

This letter introduces a Gm-cell-based CMOS image sensor (CIS) achieving deep subelectron noise performance. The CIS presents a new compensation block and low-noise current source to improve the performance of the Gm pixel. Furthermore, an optional first-order IIR filter is implemented to improve the output swing. The conversion gain, full well capacity, and dynamic range of the CIS can be easily adjusted by the charging time and the filter mode for different applications. The prototype chip is fabricated in a standard 180 nm CIS process and has a deep subelectron read noise of 0.31e-rms at minimum (of the noise distribution) and 0.42e-rms at peak (of the noise distribution). A smooth and clear photon-counting histogram is observed.