A time-resolved CMOS image sensor with high conversion-gain pixels and pipelined ADCs

Abstract

This paper presents a CMOS image sensor with high conversion-gain pixels and column-shared pipelined ADCs for Fluorescence-lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM). Pixel conversion gain of 121 uV/e-is achieved by creating a distal floating diffusion from transfer gate and reset transistor gate without any process modification. 32-channel 10-bit on-chip column-shared pipelined ADCs with sampling rate up to 5MS/s are designed using area-efficient ring amplifiers for the sensor readout. The ring amplifiers are designed based on actively-biased technique which reduces the area further by 40%. This image sensor chip is fabricated in a standard 180nm CMOS image sensor (CIS) process.