High-speed charge transfer pinned-photodiode for a CMOS time-of-flight range image sensor

Abstract

This paper presents a structure and method of range calculation for CMOS time-of-flight(TOF) range image sensors using pinned photodiodes. In the proposed method, a LED light with short pulse width and small duty ratio irradiates the objects and a back-reflected light is received by the CMOS TOF range imager.Each pixel has a pinned photodiode optimized for high speed charge transfer and unwanted charge draining. In TOF range image sensors, high speed charge transfer from the light receiving part to a charge accumulator is essential.It was found that the fastest charge transfer can be realized when the lateral electric field along the axis of charge transfer is constant and this conditon is met when the shape of the diode exactly follows the relationship between the fully-depleted potential and width. A TOF range imager prototype is designed and implemented with 0.18um CMOS image sensor technology with pinned photodiode 4transistor(T) pixels. The measurement results show that the charge transfer time is a few ns from the pinned photodiode to a charge accumulator.