Abstract
We propose a novel annealing technique for process damage recovery to improve the dark characteristics for CMOS image sensor without deteriorating the transistor performances. Microwave annealing (MWA) has been studied as an alternative annealing technique for diffusion-less dopant activation and recovery of process damage in advanced CMOS technology. We employed MWA technique to repair crystalline defects for the purpose of better dark characteristics in CMOS image sensor (CIS) process. We demonstrate that MWA can actualize the effect of recovering ion-implantation damage equivalent to conventional furnace annealing (FA) with lower temperature annealing. MWA can recover the process damage without transistor performance deterioration to replace the conventional annealing. MWA is promising technique for repairing crystalline defects in high performance image sensing devices with high frame rate, low power and excellent dark characteristics.
