Abstract
A new structure of an image sensor with highly-intellectual function, large pixel count and very high process speed is proposed. The sensor has a stacked structure with several chips. Usual stacked sensors have a photodiode array on the top chip, and ADC, buffer memory, intellectual circuitry on the lower layers. The proposed sensor has a terrace shape. On a narrow strip at the edge of each sensor, a photodiode array is placed. On the rest of the wide surface area of each chip, ADC, etc, are placed. The image is focused on the terraced photodiode array, of which step is less than 50 microns to prevent weak focusing. The sensor is placed at slightly slanted alignment to the optical center line.
