The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 25, 1998
Filed:
Oct. 08, 1996
Constantine N Anagnostopoulos, Mendon, NY (US);
Stephen Lawrence Kosman, Rochester, NY (US);
Win-chyi Chang, Penfield, NY (US);
Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY (US);
Abstract
By designing pixels with highly transparent ITO electrodes and asymmetric gates such that as much light as possible falls upon a region covered by an ITO electrode, light sensitivity is increased. Impurity diffusion from the ITO electrode into the silicon below is prevented by employing an Oxide/Nitride/Oxide stack as a dielectric. Employing at least some polysilicon electrodes with ITO electrodes is desirable to allow entrance passages through which hydrogen passivation can be accomplished. The pixel architecture can be designed to increase sensitivity further by other design choices. The first of these choices is to incorporate a lenslet on each pixel such that as much as possible of the light falling on the pixel is made to pass through the portion of the pixel covered with ITO. The second method is for color CCD sensors with color filter patterns, such as the 'BAYER' color filter pattern to name just one, to have the overlap of the color filters, which does not allow light transmission, to occur over the less sensitive area of the pixel, which is the area covered with the polysilicon electrode. For proper operation a slight modification of the vertical clock timing is needed.