Speckle Defect by Dark Leakage Current in Nitride Stringer at the Edge of Shallow Trench Isolation for CMOS Image Sensors

The leakage current in a CMOS image sensor (CIS) can have various origins. Leakage current investigations have focused on such things as cobalt-salicide, source and drain scheme, and shallow trench isolation (STI) profile. However, there have been few papers examining the effects on leakage current of nitride stringers that are formed by gate sidewall etching. So this study reports the results of a series of experiments on the effects of a nitride stringer on real display images. Different step heights were fabricated during a STI chemical mechanical polishing process to form different nitride stringer sizes, arsenic and boron were implanted in each fabricated photodiode, and the doping density profiles were analyzed. Electrons that moved onto the silicon surface caused the dark leakage current, which in turn brought up the speckle defect on the display image in the CIS.