Patent ID: 6933161

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a solid state image sensor comprising: (a) forming trapezoidal separated sections of a protection layer by coating a polyimide on a lower layer of a semiconductor substrate and forming separations between the separated sections using photolithography, such that lower portions of adjacent separated sections are proximal to each other, wherein a width of each separation between the separated sections is substantially less than a width of the separated sections; (b) coating the protection layer with photoresist and patterning the photoresist to form a plurality of photoresist patterns, each photoresist pattern formed on a top portion of a corresponding trapezoidal separated section; and (c) flowing the photoresist patterns into the separations between the trapezoidal separated sections of the underlying protection layer by applying thermal energy to the photoresist patterns, resulting in micro-lenses that are connected to each other.