Advanced 3D Technologies and Architectures for 3D Smart Image Sensors

Image Sensors will get more and more pervasive into their environment. In the context of Automotive and IoT, low cost image sensors, with high quality pixels, will embed more and more smart functions, such as the regular low level image processing but also object recognition, movement detection, light detection, etc. 3D technology is a key enabler technology to integrate into a single device the pixel layer and associated acquisition layer, but also the smart computing features and the required amount of memory to process all the acquired data. More computing and memory within the 3D Smart Image Sensors will bring new features and reduce the overall system power consumption. Advanced 3D technology with ultra-fine pitch vertical interconnect density will pave the way towards new architectures for 3D Smart Image Sensors, allowing local vertical communication between pixels, and the associated computing and memory structures. The presentation will give an overview of recent 3D technologies solutions, such as Hybrid Bonding technology and the Monolithic 3D CoolCube™ technology, with respective 3D interconnect pitch in the order of 1 μm and l00nm. Recent 3D Image Sensors will be presented, showing the capability of 3D technology to implement fine grain pixel acquisition and processing with ultra-high speed image acquisition and tile-based processing. As further perspectives, multi-layer 3D image sensor based on events and spiking will reduce power consumption with new detection and learning processing capabilities.