High-saturation output 1.55-μm-square pixel IT-CCD with metal wiring line structure

Abstract

This paper describes the device performance of a 1.55-μm-square pixel interline transfer CCD (IT-CCD) having 12M pixels in a 1/2.3-inch optical format. The device has a novel metal wiring structure designed to increase the saturation signal that is determined by the effective supply voltage at the read-out gate, and employs a lateral overflow drain architecture to assist the low anti-blooming capability of the vertical overflow drain in the photodiode. As a result, we achieve a 14% higher saturation signal, and an anti-blooming performance that is 30-times superior to a 1.75-μm-square pixel CCD, despite the 27% smaller pixel area. These novel structures do not influence other performances of the device..