A 0.5e<sub>rms</sub><sup>−</sup> Temporal Noise CMOS Image Sensor With Gm-Cell-Based Pixel and Period-Controlled Variable Conversion Gain

Journal article (2017)

Authors

X. Ge Electronic Instrumentation - EEMCS
A.J.P.A.M. Theuwissen Harvest Imaging, Electronic Instrumentation - EEMCS
Research Group
Electronic Instrumentation (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2017 X. Ge, A.J.P.A.M. Theuwissen
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1109/TED.2017.2759787
CMOS image sensor Low noise Charge-domain sampling Conversion gain (CG) Low pass Period controlled Pixel-level amplification Sinc-type filter Subelectron
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Published Date

2017

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Microelectronics

Research Group

Electronic Instrumentation

Abstract

A deep subelectron temporal noise CMOS image sensor (CIS) with a Gm-cell based pixel and a correlated-double charge-domain sampling technique has been developed for photon-starved imaging applications. With the proposed technique, the CIS, which is implemented in a standard 0.18-μm CIS process, features pixel-level amplification and achieves an input-referred noise of 0.5 e−rms with a correlated double sampling period of 5μs and a row read-out time of 10 μs. The proposed structurealso realizes a variable conversion gain (CG) with a period-controlled method. This enables the read-out path CG and the noise-equivalent number of electrons to be programmable according to the application without any change in hardware. The experiments show that the measured CG can be tuned from 50 μV/e- to 1.6 mV/e- with a charging period from 100 ns to 4μs. The measured characteristics of the prototype CIS are in a good agreement with expectations, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed techniques.

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