KLI−8023
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4
DVFD is the change in potential of the floating diffusion, DQ
is the amount of charge deposited on the floating diffusion,
and CFD is the floating diffusion capacitance. Prior to each
pixel output, the floating dif fusion is returned to the RD level
by the reset clock, fR.
Charge Transfer Efficiency
Charge Transfer Efficiency (CTE) is a measure of how
efficiently electronic char ge can be transported by a Charge
Coupled Device (CCD). This parameter is especially
important in linear imager technology due to the fact that
CCDs are often required to transport charge packets over
long distances at very high speeds. The result of poor CTE
is to reduce the overall MTF of the line image in a nonlinear
fashion: the portion of the line image at the far end of the
CCD will be degraded more than the image at the output end
of the CCD, since it will under go more CCD transfers. There
are many possible mechanisms that can negatively influence
the CTE. Amongst these mechanisms are included
excessive CCD clocking frequency, insufficient drive
potential on the CCD clocking gates, and incorrect voltage
bias on the output gate (OG signal). The effect of these
mechanisms is that some charge is “left behind” during
a CCD transfer clocking cycle. Depending on the limiting
mechanism, the lost charge could be added to the immediate
trailing cell or to a cell further back in time; thus, causing
a horizontal smearing of the line image.
The charge lost from a CCD cell, after being transferred
out of the CCD, is measured with respect to the original
charge level and is termed the charge transfer inefficiency
(CTI). CTI is defined as:
CTI +ǒTotal Charge Lost
Initial Charge Ǔ@ǒ1
Number of TransfersǓ
The efficiency of the CCD transfer (CTE) is then defined
as simply:
CTE +1*CTI
Note that the total transfer efficiency for the entire line
(TTE) is equal to (CTE)N, where N is the total number of
transfers which is equal to the number of phases per cell,
times the number of cells (n).
TTE +CTE @2@8022
Dark Signal Evaluation
The dark signal evaluation measures the thermally
generated electronic current (i.e. background noise signal)
at a specific operating temperature. Dark current is
measured will all incident radiation removed (i.e. imager is
in the dark). The current measured by the picoammeter is the
dark current of the photodiode array plus the dark current of
the CCD array. Multiplying the dark current by the total
integration time yields the quantity of dark charge. And
dividing the dark current by the number of photodiodes
yields the dark current per photodiode (IDark). Dark voltage
increases linearly with integration time, the worst-case
value occurs at the slowest clocking frequency.
Additionally, dark current doubles for approximately every
8°C increase in temperature.
Fixed Pattern Noise
If the output of an image sensor under no illumination is
viewed at high gain, a distinct non-uniform pattern or fixed
pattern noise can be seen. This fixed pattern can be removed
from the video by subtracting the dark value of each pixel
from the pixel values read out in all subsequent frames. Dark
fixed pattern noise is usually caused by variations in dark
current across an imager, but can also be caused by input
clocking signals abruptly starting or stopping, or by having
the CCD clocks not being close compliments of each other.
Mismatched CCD clocks can result in high instantaneous
substrate currents, which when combined with the fact that
the silicon substrate has some non-zero resistance, can result
in the substrate potential bouncing. The pattern noise can
also be seen when the imager is under uniform illumination.
An imager that exhibits a fixed pattern noise under uniform
illumination and shows no pattern in the dark is said to have
light pattern noise or photosensitivity pattern noise. In
addition to the reasons mentioned above, light pattern noise
can be caused by the imager entering saturation,
the nonuniform clipping effect of the anti-blooming circuit,
and by non-uniform photosensitive pixel areas often caused
by debris covering portions of some pixels.
Exposure Control
Exposure control is implemented by selectively clocking
the LOG gates during portions of the scanning line time. By
applying a large enough positive bias to the LOG gate, the
channel potential is increased to a level beyond the ‘pinning
level’ of the photodiode. (The ‘pinning’ level is the
maximum channel potential that the photodiode can achieve
and is fixed by the doping levels of the structure.) With TG1
in an ‘off’ state and LOG strongly biased, all of the
photocurrent will be drawn off to the LS drain. Referring to
the timing diagrams in Figure 12 and Figure 13, one notes
that the exposure can be controlled by pulsing the LOG gate
to a ‘high’ level while TG1 is turning ‘off’ and then
returning the LOG gate to a ‘low’ bias level sometime during
the line scan. The effective exposure (tEXP) is the net time
between the falling edge of the LOG gate and the falling
edge of the TG1 gate (end of the line). Separate LOG
connections for each channel are provided, enabling on-chip
light source and image spectral color balancing. As
a cautionary note, the switching transients of the LOG gates
during line readout may inject an artifact at the sensor
output. Rising edge artifacts can be avoided by switching
LOG during the photodiode-to-CCD transfer period,
preferably during the TG1 falling edge. Depending on
clocking speeds, the falling edge of the LOG should be
synchronous with the f1/f2 shift register readout clocks.
For very fast applications, the falling edge of the LOG gate
may be limited by on-chip RC delays across the array. In this
case artifacts may extend across one or more pixels.