Random Telegraph Noises from the Source Follower, the Photodiode Dark Current, and the Gate-Induced Sense Node Leakage in CMOS Image Sensors

Calvin Yi-Ping Chao; Shang-Fu Yeh; Meng-Hsu Wu; Kuo-Yu Chou; Honyih Tu; Chih-Lin Lee; Chin Yin; Philippe Paillet; Vincent Goiffon

doi:10.3390/s19245447

Random Telegraph Noises from the Source Follower, the Photodiode Dark Current, and the Gate-Induced Sense Node Leakage in CMOS Image Sensors

Sensors (Basel). 2019 Dec 10;19(24):5447. doi: 10.3390/s19245447.

Authors

Calvin Yi-Ping Chao¹, Shang-Fu Yeh¹, Meng-Hsu Wu¹, Kuo-Yu Chou¹, Honyih Tu¹, Chih-Lin Lee¹, Chin Yin¹, Philippe Paillet², Vincent Goiffon³

Affiliations

¹ Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Hsinchu 30077, Taiwan.
² CEA, DAM, DIF, F-91297 Arpajon, France.
³ ISAE-SUPAERO, Université de Toulouse, 31055 Toulouse, France.

Abstract

In this paper we present a systematic approach to sort out different types of random telegraph noises (RTN) in CMOS image sensors (CIS) by examining their dependencies on the transfer gate off-voltage, the reset gate off-voltage, the photodiode integration time, and the sense node charge retention time. Besides the well-known source follower RTN, we have identified the RTN caused by varying photodiode dark current, transfer-gate and reset-gate induced sense node leakage. These four types of RTN and the dark signal shot noises dominate the noise distribution tails of CIS and non-CIS chips under test, either with or without X-ray irradiation. The effect of correlated multiple sampling (CMS) on noise reduction is studied and a theoretical model is developed to account for the measurement results.

Keywords: CMOS image sensor (CIS); MOSFET channel RTN (MC-RTN); X-ray irradiation; correlated double sampling (CDS); correlated multiple sampling (CMS); dark current (DC); gate induced drain leakage (GIDL); random telegraph noise (RTN); random telegraph signal (RTS); variable junction leakage (VJL).