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Extension of the Dynamic Range in the CMOS Active Pixel Sensor Using a Stacked Photodiode and Feedback Structure

  • Jo, Sung-Hyun (School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University) ;
  • Lee, Hee Ho (School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University) ;
  • Bae, Myunghan (School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University) ;
  • Lee, Minho (School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University) ;
  • Kim, Ju-Yeong (School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University) ;
  • Choi, Pyung (School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University) ;
  • Shin, Jang-Kyoo (School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University)
  • Received : 2013.06.13
  • Accepted : 2013.07.19
  • Published : 2013.07.31

Abstract

This paper presents an extension of the dynamic range in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) active pixel sensor (APS) using a stacked photodiode and feedback structure. The proposed APS is composed of two additional MOSFETs and stacked P+/N-well/P-sub photodiodes as compared with a conventional APS. Using the proposed technique, the sensor can improve the spectral response and dynamic range. The spectral response is improved using an additional stacked P+/N-well photodiode, and the dynamic range is increased using the feedback structure. Although the size of the pixel is slightly larger than that of a conventional three-transistor APS, control of the dynamic range is much easier than that of the conventional methods using the feedback structure. The simulation and measurement results for the proposed APS demonstrate a wide dynamic range feature. The maximum dynamic range of the proposed sensor is greater than 103 dB. The designed circuit is fabricated by the $0.35-{\mu}m$ 2-poly 4-metal standard CMOS process, and its characteristics are evaluated.

Keywords

References

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