Patent ID: 7595213

Claim:
A method of manufacturing an image sensor comprising: forming a circuit trench within a peripheral circuit region of a substrate to define a circuit active region, and forming a pixel trench within the pixel region of the substrate to define a photodiode active region using a hard mask layer as a mask; forming a buffer insulating layer on the hard mask layer to fill the circuit trench and the pixel trench; patterning the buffer insulating layer to expose a bottom of the pixel trench and to cover the hard mask layer; etching the exposed bottom of the pixel trench to form a deer pixel trench using the buffer insulating layer as an etching buffer layer covering the hard mask layer, a depth of the deep pixel trench being greater than a depth of the circuit trench; doping an impurity into a bottom and a sidewall of the deep pixel trench to form a channel stop impurity region, wherein the channel stop impurity region surrounds the bottom and the sidewall of the deep pixel trench; forming a gap-filling material layer into the circuit trench to form a circuit trench device isolating region; forming a gap-filling material layer into the impurity-doped pixel trench to form a pixel trench device isolating region; and forming a photodiode within the photodiode active region.