Speaker
Description
The presentation covers the current state of semiconductor optical sensors and applications, including case studies on sensor development through electrical and optical TCAD simulations. Various types of semiconductor optical sensors are becoming increasingly important in the IoT domain, especially in environmental, smart home & building, augmented reality, autonomous, wearable, and mobile applications. Indeed, we live in a world of sensors. One could find many sensors in our surroundings – e.g. color (RGB and XYZ), proximity, spectral ambient light, and 3D time-of-flight & structured light sensors in mobile & wearables; 3D iToF and structured-light sensor for the driver and in-cabin monitoring for improved safety (alertness, HOD, occupancy) in automotive, mobility, security, and industrial applications; various imaging and biosensing in medical applications. By co-integrating optics and electronics on the same chip, high functionality, high performance and highly integrated devices can be fabricated, while using well-developed semiconductor fabrication process.
Main purpose of TCAD simulation is to “support the device/process development & analysis”, “suggest new device concepts and process flow/conditions”, and partly “failure analysis”. It is very useful tool to reduce development costs and duration during process integration investigation in advance before fabrication. In general, optical characteristics extracted from the TCAD simulation match well the measurement. Key optical properties of semiconductor devices such as standard photodiodes, CMOS image sensors, avalanche photodiodes, single photon avalanche photodiodes, solar cells, plasmonic devices and nano-metal filters can be investigated/optimized through TCAD simulation.
