B

Back-illuminated (Back-thinned) image sensor

A Back-illuminated image sensor is designed to be illuminated from the back surface so that the incident light does not need to pass through the partially opaque pixel structures at the surface of the semiconductor material. 

Binning

Binning is a method of adding the signal of adjacent pixels together to achieve high sensitivity at the cost of resolution. Binning can improve the signal to noise and frame rates of images.

Blooming

A phenomenon in which the photoelectrically converted signal charge in an image sensor exceeds a certain level and spills over into adjacent pixels or transfer region other than photodiodes (in IT type CCDs). In CCDs, the spill-out charge appears in the image as a vertical stripe occurring from the light incident position the same as with “smear.” To prevent blooming, some means for discharging excess charge should be implemented. In CCDs, this blooming is suppressed by using a vertical/horizontal anti-blooming or clocking method.