Abstract
An important consideration when scaling semiconductor sensor devices is the effect it may have on noise performance. Overall signal to noise ratio can be improved both by increasing sensor size, or alternatively by averaging the signal from two or more smaller sensors. In the design of sensor systems it is not immediately clear which is the best strategy to pursue. In this paper, we present a detailed theoretical and experimental study based on three different sensor arrays that show that an array of small independent sensors is always less noisy than a large sensor of the same size.
Highlights
Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology has enabled mass production of large arrays for applications from imaging [1] to genomics [2]
In order to develop a consistent theory in support of sensor array design we present a theoretical and experimental analysis of three different arrays of sensors: a 256 Â 256 ion sensitive field effect transistors (ISFET) array, a 32 Â 32 array of Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) and a 16 Â 16 PD array
Based on this observation and on the experimental results reported in Table 1, it can be concluded that an array of sensors performs better than a single sensor
Summary
Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology has enabled mass production of large arrays for applications from imaging [1] to genomics [2]. As sensors become smaller the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) diminishes because of phenomena including reduced optical aperture for image sensors, or reduced available reagent volume and surface area for biological sensors. This is because in many cases, the noise is set by the shot-noise limit that cannot improve as the sensor signal becomes smaller [5,6,7,8]. We consider the question of whether for sensing application the overall SNR is best improved by using fewer, larger area sensors, or by averaging the signal from more independent smaller sensors in an array configuration. Temporal image averaging is a reliable and robust method for quality and SNR enhancement [11], suited for high noise and low sensitivity applications [12,13]
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