High speed global shutter image sensors for professional applications

Global shutter imagers expand the use to miscellaneous applications, such as machine vision, 3D imaging, medical imaging, space etc. to eliminate motion artifacts in rolling shutter imagers. A low noise global shutter pixel requires more than one non-light sensitive memory to reduce the read noise. But larger memory area reduces the fill-factor of the pixels. Modern micro-lenses technology can compensate this fill-factor loss. Backside illumination (BSI) is another popular technique to improve the pixel fill-factor. But some pixel architecture may not reach sufficient shutter efficiency with backside illumination. Non-light sensitive memory elements make the fabrication with BSI possible. Machine vision like fast inspection system, medical imaging like 3D medical or scientific applications always ask for high frame rate global shutter image sensors. Thanks to the CMOS technology, fast Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) can be integrated on chip. Dual correlated double sampling (CDS) on chip ADC with high interface digital data rate reduces the read noise and makes more on-chip operation control. As a result, a global shutter imager with digital interface is a very popular solution for applications with high performance and high frame rate requirements. In this paper we will review the global shutter architectures developed in CMOSIS, discuss their optimization process and compare their performances after fabrication.