Day number 4 is a relative short day with only 9 presentations.
Radiation hardening was a topic that came back in 2 papers, one of Brookman Technology and one of ISAE, Toulouse. In both papers emphasis was made on the tiny details in the lay-out of a pixel to make the pixel more radiation hard. The devil really sits in the details. The golden rule remains : keep the electric fields as low as possible ! Surprisingly, there was only one TDI paper presented at the workshop, combined with the single topic on multi-spectral imaging. It was a report by IMEC of a kind of a follow-up device presented at previous workshops.
Global shutter devices got a separate session : Brillnics with a device that combines GS with HDR in the voltage domain by using a stacking technology, TPSCo with a 2.5 um GS in the charge domain (this paper was a repetition of their IEDM 2018 paper) as well as a 2.8 um GS with near-IR enhanced sensitivity. A remark made by TPSCo that the next version of their GS shutter device will have 2.2 um pixel pitch. The work of TPSCo is all front-side illuminated.
ON Semiconductor presented a GS pixel with correction processing by means of a pixel with a single PD, single FD, but double storage node. The final paper of the workshop was delivered by ams : a BSI pixel with background light suppression intended for structured light applications and object tracking. A clever pixel, based on 6T (2 resets, 2 transfer gates, 1 source follower, 1 row select and two floating diffusions) and 1C (connected between the 2 floating diffusions) in the pixel, allows to shoot a sequence of multiple frames one after another and only stores the difference between the frames. Pixel size is just 2.8 um. Testdevices seem to be available, but measurement results no yet. Maybe next workshop !?
The IISW2019 was again a big success, many excellent presentations, all high quality papers, good atmosphere, perfect organization. The interest of the participants can be best judged by the amount of people that are willing to stay till the very last paper is presented. And it is really remarkable that during all the image sensor workshops, almost everyone really stays till the very end.
Congratulations and thanks to the organization of IISW2019. See you all again in Europe for the IISW2021.
Albert, 28-06-2019.