Why Opt For Chip Stack, FD-SOI in Image Sensors?

Junko Yoshida, EETimes
1/28/2016 02:30 PM EST

MADISON, Wis. -- If Samsung’s latest smartphone TV commercial (which touts a number of superior camera features and ends with a tagline -- “It's Not a Phone, It's a Galaxy”) is any indication, the ingredient that matters most in smartphones today isn’t the phone. It’s the camera.

As camera functions become essential to differentiate embedded devices, designers of CMOS image sensors (CIS) find themselves wrestling with growing demands on multiple fronts – image quality, size of camera modules and overall cost.

Over the last few years, CIS vendors have embraced chip stacking. Under that option, a CIS is stacked with an image signal processor (ISP). As the next step, at least two major players, Sony and Samsung, are reportedly pondering the use of FD-SOI wafers in manufacturing ISPs for a chip stacked CIS.

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