Focus on digital imaging

Pre-conference Workshop 2 (PM)

3-hour Workshop

Tuesday 20th March - 2.00pm - 5.30pm


Title: Advanced Solid-State Imaging - Understanding and Improving Light Sensitivity


Led by:
Albert Theuwissen
Albert Theuwissen
HARVEST IMAGING
Belgium


Workshop content

  • Explaining and understanding the limitations of light sensitivity
  • Cross-talk: spectral, optical, electrical
  • Improving light sensitivity
  • Micro-lenses
  • Amorphous top-layers
  • Light guides
  • Back-side illumination
  • Binning
  • Electron Multiplication

Who should attend?

Participants will get an in-depth overview of the classical limitations of silicon solid-state imagers as far as light sensitivity is concerned. In the workshop several solutions will be discussed that are or can be applied these days to overcome those limitations. As can be expected, not a single solution will solve all problems. The workshop will focus as well on the impact of pixel scaling on the various solutions proposed. Pixel shrinkage is not just an issue for imagers intended for mobile imaging that can benefit from very advanced CMOS processes. It is an issue as well for more and more applications that still use a more relaxed CMOS process. Every single photon can contribute to the signal of a sensor, so it is of crucial importance to catch them all.

About your leader:

Albert J.P. Theuwissen was born in Maaseik (Belgium) on December 20, 1954. He received the degree in electrical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) in 1977. His thesis work was based on the development of supporting hardware around a linear CCD image sensor.

From 1977 to 1983, his work at the ESAT laboratory of the Catholic University of Leuven focused on semiconductor technology for linear CCD image sensors. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1983. His dissertation was on the implementation of transparent conductive layers as gate material in the CCD technology.

In 1983, he joined the Micro Circuits Division of the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven (the Netherlands), as a member of the scientific staff. Since that time he was involved in research in the field of solid state image sensing, which resulted in the project leadership of respectively SDTV- and HDTV imagers. In 1991 he became Department Head of the division Imaging Devices, including CCD as well as CMOS solid state imaging activities.

He is author or coauthor of over 100 technical papers in the solid state imaging field and issued several patents. In 1988, 1989, 1995 and 1996 he was a member of the International Electron Devices Meeting paper selection committee. He is co editor of the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices special issues on Solid State Image Sensors, May 1991, October 1997, January 2003 and November 2009, and of IEEE Micro special issue on Digital Imaging, Nov./Dec 1998. In 1995, he authored a textbook "Solid State Imaging with Charge Coupled Devices". In 1998 he became an IEEE distinguished lecturer.

He acted as general chairman of the IEEE International Workshop on Charge-Coupled Devices and Advanced Image Sensors in 1997 and in 2003 and 2009. He is member of the Steering Committee of the aforementioned workshop and founder of the Walter Kosonocky Award, which highlights the best paper in the field of solid-state image sensors. During several years he was a member of the technical committee of the European Solid-State Device Research Conference and of the European Solid-State Circuits Conference.

Since 1999 he is a member of the technical committee of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference. For the same conference he acted as secretary, vice-chair and chair in the European ISSCC Committee and he is a member of the overall ISSCC Executive Committee. Recently he has been elected to be International Technical Program Chair vice-chair and chair for respectively the ISSCC 2009 and ISSCC 2010.

In March 2001, he was appointed as part-time professor at the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. At this University he teaches courses in solid-state imaging and coaches PhD students in their research on CMOS image sensors.

In April 2002, he joined DALSA Corp. to act as the company's Chief Technology Officer. In September 2004 he retired as CTO and became Chief Scientist of DALSA Semiconductors. After he left DALSA in September 2007, he started his own company "Harvest Imaging", that is focusing on consulting, training, teaching and coaching in the field of solid-state imaging technology.
In 2006 he co-founded (together with his peers Eric Fossum and Nobukazu Teranishi) ImageSensors, Inc. (a California non-profit public benefit company) to address the needs of the image sensor community.

Recently in 2008, he receives the SMPTE's Fuji Gold medal for his contributions to the research, development and education of others in the field of solid-state image capturing. He is member of editorial board of the magazine "Photonics Spectra", an IEEE Fellow and member of SPIE.