A Novel Low Dark Current 9T Global Shutter Pixel with Merged Active Area

There is an increasing demand for high-performance global shutter pixels for CMOS image sensor (CIS) in the high-end imaging field. The existing global pixels have disadvantages, such as low sensitivity, high dark current, and large pixel area. In the present work, we developed a novel 9T global shutter CIS pixel with a much smaller pixel pitch of 2.8 μm. To our knowledge, it is the most miniature reported 9T global shutter CIS pixel. The developed 9T global shutter CIS pixel shows an excellent low dark current by the strategy of merging active area, which is 38 e−/s. Moreover, the cross-talk, sensitivity, read noise, dynamic range and full well capacity show performance. The current strategy is expected to be helpful in further improving the performance of other kinds of CIS pixels.