CCDイメージセンサ用BCD-高性能非破壊電荷検出機構

抄録

This paper describes the theoretical operation and measured characteristics of a charge detection amplifier, which detects charge that moves in the bulk of a silicon CCD channel. The charge detection is nondestructive and, therefore, free of kTC noise. The detector is very high speed and low-noise operation make it suitable for high-resolution CCD image sensors. A simple gradual channel transistor approximation was used to derive a first-order device model, which was then used to predict the charge-conversion sensitivity, linearity, and noise. The derived theoretical results were compared with detailed measurements, which included the measured conversion gain, linearity, reset feed through, noise, and hot-carrier effects. The analysis and measurements demonstrated that this bulk charge detection (BCD) is superior to today's state-of-the-art floating-diffusion charge-detection amplifiers in high-speed applications.