CMOS active pixel sensors (APS) have performances competitive with charge-coupled device (CCD) technology, and offer advantages in on-chip functionality, system power reduction, cost and miniaturization. In this paper, we present characterization of a fast CMOS APS used in an imager for high-speed laser detections, which can replace the streak cameras. It produces the intensity information in function of one spatial dimension and time [I = f(x,t)] from one frame in two spatial dimensions. The time information is obtained for the first prototype camera to delay successively the integration phase in each pixel of the same row. The different noise sources of the APS sensors such as shot noise due to the photo sensor, the thermal noise and flicker noise due to the readout transistors and the photon shot noise are presented to determine the fundamental limits on image sensor. The first prototype FAMOSI (FAst MOS Imager) is composed of 64 x 64 active pixels. The simulation and experimental results show that a conversion gain of 6.73 ± 0.25 μV/e^- has been obtained with a noise level of 87 ± 3e^- rms. The power consumption of the chip is 25 mW at 50 images/sec.

Date Published: 1 August 2003
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 4948, 25th International Congress on High-Speed Photography and Photonics, (1 August 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.516949

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4948:
25th International Congress on High-Speed Photography and Photonics
Claude Cavailler; Graham P. Haddleton; Manfred Hugenschmidt, Editor(s)