Monolithic 3.3 V CCD/SOI-CMOS imager technology

Abstract

We have developed a merged CCD/SOI-CMOS technology that enables the fabrication of monolithic, low-power imaging systems on a chip. The CCD's, fabricated in the bulk handle wafer, have charge-transfer inefficiencies of about 1/spl times/10/sup -5/ and well capacities of more than 100,000 electrons with 3.3-V clocks and 8/spl times/8-/spl mu/m pixels. Fully depleted 0.35-/spl mu/m SOI-CMOS ring oscillators have stage delay of 48 ps at 3.3 V. We demonstrate for the first time an integrated image sensor with charge-domain A/D conversion and on-chip clocking.