Electronics Weekly, Physorg: Fraunhofer January 2012 News Magazine announced a lateral drift photodetector (LDPD) which boosts the speed of traditional CMOS sensors so removing the drawbacks of Pinned Photodiodes (PPD) using pixel size 10 µm or above.
"...when the pixels exceed a certain size, the PPDs have a speed problem", explains Werner Brockherde, head of department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems IMS. Low-light applications tend to call for high image rates. "But the readout speed using PPD is too low", says Brockherde.
The Fraunhofer researchers have developed a new photodiode, the lateral drift field photodetector (LDPD), that is said to be unique and has already been patented. "In this component, the charge carriers generated by the incident light move at high speed to the readout node," explains the researcher. With the PPD the electrons are said to diffuse to the exit; a comparatively slow process but which is sufficient for many applications. "But by integrating an internal electric fi eld into the photoactive region of the component, we have managed to accelerate this process by a factor of up to a hundred."
To produce the new LDPD, the Fraunhofer researchers improved upon the currently available CMOS chip manufacturing process based on the 0.35 μm standard: "The additional LDPD component must not be allowed to impair the properties of the other components," says Brockherde. The prototype of the new high-speed CMOS image sensors is already available. "We expect to get approval for series production next year," says Brockherde.
Max Collet Passed Away
Albert Theuwissen published that Max Collet, the head of Image Sensor R&D group of Philips Research in the 80’s passed away at the age of 70.
Superpix Announces New Sensors
Contrary to the previously published rumors, Beijing, China-based Superpix announced a bunch of new sensors targeting consumer market.
The company information page says it has "developed a board range of high performance image sensor and relative image process chip, and most of them achieved domestic advanced level. Up to now, there are over 50 million chips had been sold. And based on customers’ comments, the products are stable and reliable. The latest 12MP CMOS image sensor is the very first domestic product beyond 10MP, which represents the highest level of that field in China. The company has been appraised “100 Innovative Experiment Enterprises” by ministry of science and technology, and won the honor of “A Level Credit Outstanding Corporation”".
The company product range spans from 1/15-inch 0.08MP to APS-C 12MP sensors. The pixel size range is from 1.75um used in 2MP sensor to 6um in APS-C DSLR one. The package options include TSV:
The 2MP 1/5-inch SP2518 is said to be "based on the 3rd generation 1.75um CMOS image sensor pixel architecture designed by SuperPix". With Integrated ISP it consumes 220mW power. The reported dark current is 40e/s at 60C. The maximum SNR is 38dB, quite in line with other sensors with similar pixel size. The summary table above says SP2518 is able to work at 15fps speed, the product page claims 13fps at full 1600 x 1200 resolution, while the product flyer says the speed is "up to 12fps" at full resolution.
Another interesting product is SP8AC08 12MP APS-C DSLR sensor. "The SP8AC08 is a high quality and low power consumption 12 mega pixel image sensor capable of capturing color digital images. 4260(V) x 2840(H) active pixels are incorporated in and each pixel size is 6 um. High Sensitivity, High SNR, and Low dark current also are the advantages can’t be ignored. These particularities will result in extremely visual impression. SP8AC08 is the first homemade CMOS image sensor which has resolution up to 12 mega pixel." Here is the sensor's spec:
The company information page says it has "developed a board range of high performance image sensor and relative image process chip, and most of them achieved domestic advanced level. Up to now, there are over 50 million chips had been sold. And based on customers’ comments, the products are stable and reliable. The latest 12MP CMOS image sensor is the very first domestic product beyond 10MP, which represents the highest level of that field in China. The company has been appraised “100 Innovative Experiment Enterprises” by ministry of science and technology, and won the honor of “A Level Credit Outstanding Corporation”".
The company product range spans from 1/15-inch 0.08MP to APS-C 12MP sensors. The pixel size range is from 1.75um used in 2MP sensor to 6um in APS-C DSLR one. The package options include TSV:
The 2MP 1/5-inch SP2518 is said to be "based on the 3rd generation 1.75um CMOS image sensor pixel architecture designed by SuperPix". With Integrated ISP it consumes 220mW power. The reported dark current is 40e/s at 60C. The maximum SNR is 38dB, quite in line with other sensors with similar pixel size. The summary table above says SP2518 is able to work at 15fps speed, the product page claims 13fps at full 1600 x 1200 resolution, while the product flyer says the speed is "up to 12fps" at full resolution.
Another interesting product is SP8AC08 12MP APS-C DSLR sensor. "The SP8AC08 is a high quality and low power consumption 12 mega pixel image sensor capable of capturing color digital images. 4260(V) x 2840(H) active pixels are incorporated in and each pixel size is 6 um. High Sensitivity, High SNR, and Low dark current also are the advantages can’t be ignored. These particularities will result in extremely visual impression. SP8AC08 is the first homemade CMOS image sensor which has resolution up to 12 mega pixel." Here is the sensor's spec:
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