The first session of IISW2015 was devoted to larger devices intended for digital still photogrpahy. Samsung presented a 28M APS-C sensor with BSI technology. It is not common to go after BSI for these large dies, but apparently time and yield is ready to apply BSI to these larger devices as well. Remarkable dark performance : 9 electrons/s dark current at 60 deg.C, 1.8 electron of random noise at 24 dB gain. The architecture is charactereized by 1 ADC for 2 columns, double column busses and an optimized read sequence to allow for binning.
Canon described their sensor with phase-detection auto-focus pixels in EVERY pixel. This solution allows for no light shield in the auto-focus pixels and no interpolation of the auto-focus pixels. This sensor is already avaialable in Canon cameras, but it is the first time Canon publishes technical information about the device. Because of the dual photodiode in every pixel, every pixel is provided with two readout structures, so every pixel has 8 transistors. Random noise level of 1.8 electrons is reported at gain = 32 for a single photodiode.
Also Sony presented a CMOS imager with auto-focus functionality in every pixel. This sensor is provided with a diagonal pixel orientation, so that the rows have alternatively G pixels and R/B pixels. To make this sensor compatible with the installed software base, first of all the pixel stream is converted into Bayer RGB. Also of interest for this sensor architecture with a dual PD in every pixel is the option for HDR by using 1 PD/pixel for a short exposure and 1 PD/pixel for a long exposure time.
Teledyne DALSA published one of the very few CCD papers at the workshop, mainly large area devices, e.g. 32M, 60M and 250M. Remarkable is the ultra low dark current for these devices : 2 pA/cm2 at 60 deg.C. These low values make these devices very well suited for extremely large expsoure times.
Albert, 22 juni 2015.