eLeNA: A Parametric CMOS Active-Pixel Sensor for the Evaluation of Reset Noise Reduction Architectures

We present a novel complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) active-pixel sensor imager that incorporates different reset schemes to achieve lower reset noise levels. The sensor, eLeNA, features a 448 × 512 array with a pixel pitch of 15 μm, fabricated using a 0.18- μm CMOS process. Fourteen sections and five different reset methods were employed. Without using pinned diodes, we implanted structures for correlated double sampling. A noise of 6 e- is measured with a conversion gain of 49 μV/e-. We will discuss various applications for the reset method that achieved the best overall performance, considering leakage current and read noise.