Effects of Hot Pixels on Pixel Performance on Backside Illuminated Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Image Sensors
Bingkai Liu,
Yudong Li,
Lin Wen,
Xiang Zhang,
Qi Guo
Affiliations
Bingkai Liu
Key Laboratory of Functional Materials and Devices for Special Environments, Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Yudong Li
Key Laboratory of Functional Materials and Devices for Special Environments, Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Lin Wen
Key Laboratory of Functional Materials and Devices for Special Environments, Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Xiang Zhang
Aerospace System Engineering Shanghai, Shanghai 201109, China
Qi Guo
Key Laboratory of Functional Materials and Devices for Special Environments, Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Effects of hot pixels on pixel performance in light and dark environments have been investigated in pinned photodiode 0.18 μm backside illuminated CMOS image sensors irradiated by 10 MeV protons. After exposure to protons, hot pixels and normal pixels are selected from the whole pixel array, and their influences on key parameters are analyzed. Experimental results show that radiation-induced hot pixels have a significant impact on pixel performance in dark environments, such as dark signal nonuniformity, long integration time, and random telegraph signal. Hot pixels are caused by defects with complex structures, i.e., cluster defects. Furthermore, the dark current activation energy result confirms that the defects causing the hot pixels have defect energy levels close to mid-gap.
