Development of a 55 μ m pitch 8 inch CMOS image sensor for the high resolution NDT application

A CMOS image sensor (CIS) with a large area for the high resolution X-ray imaging was designed. The sensor has an active area of 125 × 125 mm² comprised with 2304 × 2304 pixels and a pixel size of 55 × 55 μm². First batch samples were fabricated by using an 8 inch silicon CMOS image sensor process with a stitching method. In order to evaluate the performance of the first batch samples, the electro-optical test and the X-ray test after coupling with an image intensifier screen were performed. The primary results showed that the performance of the manufactured sensors was limited by a large stray capacitance from the long path length between the analog multiplexer on the chip and the bank ADC on the data acquisition board. The measured speed and dynamic range were limited up to 12 frame per sec and 55 dB respectively, but other parameters such as the MTF, NNPS and DQE showed a good result as designed. Based on this study, the new X-ray CIS with ∼ 50 μm pitch and ∼ 150 cm² active area are going to be designed for the high resolution X-ray NDT equipment for semiconductor and PCB inspections etc.