Patent ID: 8009216

Claim:
A semiconductor structure for a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor pixel, said semiconductor structure comprising: a photosensitive diode structure; a first transistor including a diffusion region and a first channel, wherein said diffusion region is a source region of said first transistor and is of integral construction with a terminal of said photosensitive diode structure; a second transistor including a second channel located in proximity to said first channel, wherein said second channel is electrically coupled to said first channel to enable formation of a merged channel including said first channel and said second channel; a plurality of frame transfer transistors including a plurality of frame transfer channels and configured to store a plurality of frames therein, wherein each of said plurality of frame transfer transistors is serially connected among one another and comprises a gate electrode and a frame transfer channel, and wherein each of said plurality of frame transfer channels is located in proximity with another of said plurality of frame transfer channels to enable formation of a merged channel including two neighboring frame transistor channels; and a set of four metal lines and a set of metal vias, wherein each of said set of four metal lines connects gate electrodes of every fourth frame transfer transistor among said plurality of frame transfer transistors through a subset of said metal vias, and wherein each of said four metal lines connects a different subset of said plurality of frame transfer transistors.