Dramatic Reduction of Optical Crosstalk in Deep-Submicrometer CMOS Imager With Air Gap Guard Ring

A dielectric structure, air gap guard ring, has been successfully developed to reduce optical crosstalk thus improving pixel sensitivity of CMOS image sensor with 0.18-μm technology. Based on refraction index (RI) differences between dielectric films (RI = 1.4 /spl sim/ 1.6) and air gap (RI = 1), total internal reflection occurred at dielectric-film/air-gap interface, thus the incident light is concentrated in selected pixel. Excellent optical performances have been demonstrated in 3.0 × 3.0 μm pixel. Optical spatial crosstalk achieves 80% reduction at 20/spl deg/ incidence angle and significantly alleviates the pixel sensitivity degradation with larger angle of incident light.