Abstract
A new p-type guard ring by introduction of a thin p-type layer which encloses shallow trench isolation (STI) layer is utilized to reduce radiation induced noise in photodiodes implemented in 0.18 \(\upmu\)m standard complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The guard ring efficiency is characterized according to a new radiation model developed for p–n photodiodes implemented in the same technology. The extracted model which is the oxide trapped charges and interface state values is verified using a simulation setup for two different structures. The optimized guard ring with the doping concentration of \(10^{+19}\) atoms cm\(^{-3}\) reduces the dark current of photodiodes at 1 Mrad dose of ionizing radiation from \(6.97\,\times \,10^{-13}\) A (without the guard ring) to \(1.29\,\times \,10^{-14}\) A for STI in contact with the active region structure and from \(5.95\,\times \,10^{-13}\) A (without the guard ring) to \(2\,\times \,10^{-14}\) A for STI surrounded p-well structure. The proposed guard ring can be used as a promising structure for ionizing radiation hardening of photodiodes.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
3-D Device Simulator, SILVACO International, Version 5.14.0. www.silvaco.com
Barnaby, H.J., McLain, M.L., Esqueda, I.S., Chen, X.J.: Modeling ionizing radiation effects in solid state materials and CMOS devices. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I Regul. Pap. 56(8), 1870–1883 (2009)
Battaglia, M., Bisello, D., Contarato, D., Denes, P., Doering, D., Giubilato, P., Kim, T.S., Lee, Z., Mattiazzo, S., and Radmilovic, V.: Development of a radiation hard CMOS monolithic pixel sensor. In: Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2008. NSS’08, pp. 3501–3504. IEEE (2008)
Beck, G.A., Carter, A.A., Carter, J.R., Greenwood, N.M., Lucas, A.D., Munday, D.J., Pritchard, T.W., Robinson, D.C., Wilburn, D., Wyllie, K.H.: Radiation-tolerant breakdown protection of silicon detectors using multiple floating guard rings. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. Sect. A Accel. Spectrom. Detect. Assoc. Equip. 396(1–2), 214–227 (1997)
Benoit, M., Lounis, A., Dinu, N.: Simulation of radiation damage effects on planar pixel guard ring structure for ATLAS inner detector upgrade. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 56(6), 3236–3243 (2009)
Braga, L.H.C., Domingues, S., Rocha, M.F., Sá, L.B., Campos, F., Santos, F.V., Mesquita, A.C., Silva, M.V., Swart, J.W.: Layout techniques for radiation hardening of standard CMOS active pixel sensors. In: Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference on Integrated Circuits and Systems Design, pp. 257–262. ACM (2007)
Chee, F.P., Amir, A., Haider, F., Salleh, S., Muhammad, A.: Effects of total ionizing dose on bipolar junction transistor. Am. J. Appl. Sci. 7(6), 807–810 (2010)
Da Rold, M., Paccagnella, A., Da Re, A., Verzellesi, G., Bacchetta, N., Wheadon, R., Dalla Betta, G.-F., Candelori, A., Soncini, G., Bisello, D.: Radiation effects on breakdown characteristics of multiguarded devices. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 44(3), 721–727 (1997)
Esqueda, I.S., Barnaby, H.J., King, M.P.: Compact modeling of total ionizing dose and aging effects in MOS technologies. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 62(4), 1501–1515 (2015)
Evensen, L., Hanneborg, A., Avset, B.S., Nese, M.: Guard ring design for high voltage operation of silicon detectors. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. Sect. A Accel. Spectrom. Detect. Assoc. Equip. 337(1), 44–52 (1993)
Goiffon, V., Virmontois, C., Magnan, P., Girard, S., Paillet, P.: Analysis of total dose-induced dark current in CMOS image sensors from interface state and trapped charge density measurements. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 57(6), 3087–3094 (2010)
Goiffon, V., Cervantes, P., Virmontois, C., Corbire, F., Magnan, P., Estribeau, M.: Generic radiation hardened photodiode layouts for deep submicron CMOS image sensor processes. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 58(6), 3076–3084 (2011)
Grove, A.S., Fitzgerald, D.J.: Surface effects on pn junctions: characteristics of surface space-charge regions under non-equilibrium conditions. Solid State Electron. 9(8), 783–806 (1966)
Hancock, B.R., Soli, G.A.: Total dose testing of a CMOS charged particle spectrometer. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 44(6), 1957–1964 (1997)
Hass, K.J., Ambles, J.W.: Single event transients in deep submicron CMOS. In: 42nd Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 122–125. IEEE (1999)
Hoenk, M.E., Grunthaner, P.J., Grunthaner, F.J., Terhune, R.W., Fattahi, M., Tseng, H.F.: Growth of a delta-doped silicon layer by molecular beam epitaxy on a chargecoupled device for reflectionlimited ultraviolet quantum efficiency. Appl. Phys. Lett. 61(9), 1084–1086 (1992)
Hoenk, M.E., Jones, T.J., Dickie, M.R., Greer, F., Cunningham, T.J., Blazejewski, E., Nikzad, S.: Delta-doped back-illuminated CMOS imaging arrays: International Image Sensor Workshop (IISW) (2009)
Hughes, H.L., Benedetto, J.M.: Radiation effects and hardening of MOS technology: devices and circuits. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 50(3), 500–521 (2003)
Johari, H., Ayazi, F.: High-density embedded deep trench capacitors in silicon with enhanced breakdown voltage. IEEE Trans. Compon. Packag. Technol. 32(4), 808–815 (2009)
Liu, J., Zhou, J., Luo, H., Kong, X., En, Y., Shi, Q., He, Y.: Total-dose-induced edge effect in SOI NMOS transistors with different layouts. Microelectron. Reliab. 50(1), 45–47 (2010)
Ma, T.P., Dressendorfer, P.V. (eds.): Ionizing Radiation Effects in MOS Devices and Circuits. Wiley, Hoboken (1989)
Masouleh, F., Das, N., Rozati, S.: Optimal subwavelength design for efficient light trapping in central slit of plasmonics-based metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector. Opt. Quantum Electron. 47(6), 1477–1485 (2015)
Mishra, V., Srivastava, V.D., Kataria, S.K.: Role of guard rings in improving the performance of silicon detectors. Pramana 65(2), 259–272 (2005)
Radiation Effects in Advanced Commercial Technologies: How Device Scaling has affected the Selection of Spaceborne Electronics. In: Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference Short Course Notebook (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Irani, K.H., Pil-Ali, A. & Karami, M.A. A new guard ring for radiation induced noise reduction in photodiodes implemented in 0.18 μm CMOS technology. Opt Quant Electron 49, 292 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-017-1125-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-017-1125-1