A 0.66e<sup>−</sup><inf>rms</inf> temporal-readout-noise 3D-stacked CMOS image sensor with conditional correlated multiple sampling (CCMS) technique

Abstract

A conditional correlated multiple sampling (CCMS) technique for low noise CMOS image sensor (CIS) is proposed to reduce noise and address low frame rate issue caused by the conventional correlated multiple sampling (CMS) technique. An 8Mpixel 3D-stacked CIS with 1.1um pixel pitch is designed and verified. Measurement results show this technique can achieve 0.66e <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-</sup> <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">rms</sub> at 36.1 kHz A/D sampling rate per pixel with analog gain at 16 and 5-times multiple sampling. The resulting DNL is within -0.49/+0.45LSB.