Harvest Imaging Blog

This Wednesday the IISW 2011 started in Japan.  After all the issues that happened on March 11^th, several people cancelled their contribution and/or trip to Japan, but nevertheless, the technical program of the first day was more than packed.  It is impossible to report about all the papers, also because the afternoon program contained about 30 flash presentations that go together with the poster session.

In the morning session the pixel shrinkage was a kind of main topic.  What could be learned from the presentations and the publications ?

–          All companies are moving towards a kind of common performance level : noise, dark current, QE, SNR of the various technologies seem to converge, although the different companies are using different technologies,

–          CMOS image sensors are deviating more and more from the standard CMOS technology.  In the early days of CMOS it was a strong argument that CMOS could be made in standard, cheap CMOS technologies, but this argument no longer holds.  Another consequence is the second source option for CMOS.  Because everyone is relying on its own technologies, one can forget about second sourcing (except maybe for second sourcing within the same company),

–          Over the last couple of years BSI became an important technology for the CMOS devices, but as usual, a new technology also boosts the developments in the old technology.  It is quite remarkable that several companies tell at the workshop about their light guiding technology that was used in the 1.45 mm pixel FI devices.  In this way they could keep up the lightsensitivity in these small FI pixels, even in some 1.1 mm pixels.  But with the step towards sub-micron pixel pitches, BI seems to be inevitable. 

There was an interesting invited talk on colour filter technology by Hiroshi Tagushi of FujiFilm.  Quite nice paper containing information on the road map of the filter material.  It seems that the photoresist + colour pigment is no longer an option for sub-micron pixels, because simply, there is no space anymore for the lightsensitive resist component in the filter material.  For that reason sub-micron pixels with colour filters will also need a classical lithostep for the filter definition, in combination with a reactive ion etching technology.

Day one ended with the poster session.  Every poster presenter gets a few minutes to introduce his/her work during a flash presentation.  Within 2 hours the amount of information thrown on the audience is incredibly large.  Not just because of the quantity but also because of the quality of the work.  It should be remarked that over the years the overall quality of the content as well as of the presentations given at the workshop has enormously grown .  It clearly demonstrates the importance of this workshop.  Tomorrow more news.

Albert, June 10^th, 2011.

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