Active-pixel sensor

An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector (typically a pinned photodiode) and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) active-pixel sensor, MOS field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) are used as amplifiers. There are different types of APS, including the early NMOS APS and the now much more common complementary MOS (CMOS) APS, also known as the CMOS sensor. CMOS sensors are used in digital camera technologies such as cell phone cameras, web cameras, most modern digital pocket cameras, most digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs), mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras (MILCs), and lensless imaging for, e.g., blood cells.

CMOS sensors emerged as an alternative to charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors and eventually outsold them by the mid-2000s.

The term active pixel sensor is also used to refer to the individual pixel sensor itself, as opposed to the image sensor. In this case, the image sensor is sometimes called an active pixel sensor imager, or active-pixel image sensor.

While researching metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology, Willard Boyle and George E. Smith discovered that an electric charge could be stored on a small MOS capacitor, which became the fundamental building block of the charge-coupled device (CCD) that they invented in 1969.

One of the main challenges with CCD technology was its reliance on nearly perfect charge transfer during readout. This limitation resulted in several drawbacks: relatively low radiation tolerance, poor performance in low-light conditions, manufacturing difficulties in producing large arrays, limited integration with on-chip electronics, reduced efficiency at low temperatures, constraints at high frame rates, and challenges in fabrication using non-silicon materials for extending wavelength response.

At RCA Laboratories, a research team including Paul K. Weimer, W.S. Pike and G. Sadasiv in 1969 proposed a solid-state image sensor with scanning circuits using thin-film transistors (TFTs), with photoconductive film used for the photodetector. A low-resolution "mostly digital" N-channel MOSFET (NMOS) imager with intra-pixel amplification, for an optical mouse application, was demonstrated by Richard F. Lyon in 1981. Another type of image sensor technology that is related to the APS is the hybrid infrared focal plane array (IRFPA), designed to operate at cryogenic temperatures in the infrared spectrum. The devices are two chips that are put together like a sandwich: one chip contains detector elements made in InGaAs or HgCdTe, and the other chip is typically made of silicon and is used to read out the photodetectors. The exact date of origin of these devices is classified, but they were in use by the mid-1980s.^{[citation needed]}

A key element of the modern CMOS sensor is the pinned photodiode (PPD). It was invented by Nobukazu Teranishi, Hiromitsu Shiraki and Yasuo Ishihara at NEC in 1980, and then publicly reported by Teranishi and Ishihara with A. Kohono, E. Oda and K. Arai in 1982, with the addition of an anti-blooming structure. The pinned photodiode is a photodetector structure with low lag, low noise, high quantum efficiency and low dark current. The new photodetector structure invented at NEC was given the name "pinned photodiode" (PPD) by B.C. Burkey at Kodak in 1984. In 1987, the PPD began to be incorporated into most CCD sensors, becoming a fixture in consumer electronic video cameras and then digital still cameras. Since then, the PPD has been used in nearly all CCD sensors and then CMOS sensors.

The precursor to the APS was the passive-pixel sensor (PPS), a type of photodiode array (PDA). A passive-pixel sensor consists of passive pixels which are read out without amplification, with each pixel consisting of a photodiode and a MOSFET switch. In a photodiode array, pixels contain a p-n junction, integrated capacitor, and MOSFETs as selection transistors. A photodiode array was proposed by G. Weckler in 1968, predating the CCD. This was the basis for the PPS, which had image sensor elements with in-pixel selection transistors, proposed by Peter J.W. Noble in 1968, and by Savvas G. Chamberlain in 1969.