ARCADIA MAPS process qualification through the electrical characterization of passive pixel arrays

Abstract The development of novel Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor (MAPS) technologies has been pursued by several collaborations in the last two decades. The ARCADIA project aims to design fully depleted MAPS for medical, space, HEP and X-ray detection applications, that can be produced with a commercial 110 nm CMOS production process. Among the test structures of the first two engineering runs of the project, passive pixel arrays with different pitches and layouts were included. The main characteristics of the produced devices in terms of dark current, depletion voltage, punch through current and pixel capacitance have been evaluated from IV and CV characteristics of the pixel arrays. Groups of four samples have been extracted from as many different positions within each wafer and electrically characterized to obtain information on the variability in the pixel operating voltage range and in the pixel dark current, reflecting variations related to the employed production process. The experimental data demonstrated a good uniformity in the considered parameters for different sample positions within the produced wafers, as well as for samples extracted from different wafers with the same substrate type.