Effects of aperture size on the performance of CMOS image sensor with pixel aperture for depth extraction

摘要

Effects of aperture size on the performance of CMOS image sensor with pixel aperture for depth extraction are investigated. In general, the aperture size is related to the depth resolution and the sensitivity of the CMOS image sensor. As the aperture size decreases, the depth resolution is improved and the sensitivity decreases. To optimize the aperture size, optical simulation using the finite-difference time-domain method was implemented. The optical simulation was performed with various aperture sizes from 0.3 μm to 1.1 μm and the optical power with the incidence angle as a function of the aperture size was evaluated. Based on the optical simulation results, the CMOS image sensor was designed and fabricated using 0.11 μm CMOS image sensor process. The effects of aperture size are investigated by comparison of the simulation and the measurement results.