...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8129762 | Image sensor A method is provided for processing a substrate. The substrate has at least one filter region, a plurality of bond pads, and a plurality of scribe lines arranged around the filter region and bond pads. A first planarization layer is formed above the substrate. The p... | 03/06/2012 |
| 7956389 | Solid-state imaging device, imaging apparatus, and method of manufacturing solid-state imaging device A solid-state imaging device includes: a semiconductor substrate; photoelectric conversion elements; vertical charge transfer paths that transfer charges generated in photoelectric conversion elements, in a vertical direction; a horizontal charge transfer path that ... | 06/07/2011 |
| 7772616 | Solid-state imaging device and imaging apparatus A solid-state imaging device includes a semiconductor substrate and a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements provided in the semiconductor substrate, wherein the plurality of photoelectric conversion elements include: effective photoelectric conversion eleme... | 08/10/2010 |
| 7456449 | Semiconductor apparatus, LED print head, and printer A semiconductor apparatus has a substrate to which is attached a thin semiconductor film including at least one semiconductor device. An interconnecting line links the semiconductor film with electrical circuitry on the substrate. The interconnecting line includes a... | 11/25/2008 |
| 7345328 | Solid-state image pick-up device of photoelectric converting film lamination type A solid-state image pick-up device of a photoelectric converting film lamination type including a semiconductor substrate and at least three layers of photoelectric converting films each of which is interposed between a common electrode film and pixel electrode film... | 03/18/2008 |
| 7312484 | Pixel having an oxide layer with step region A semiconductor structure, having a doped well region being formed in a substrate layer and a transistor having a terminal provided within said doped well region. The semiconductor structure also includes an oxide layer formed over the substrate layer, the doped wel... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7294873 | X-Y address type solid state image pickup device and method of producing the same In an X-Y address type solid state image pickup device represented by a CMOS image sensor, a back side light reception type pixel structure is adopted in which a wiring layer is provided on one side of a silicon layer including photo-diodes formed therein. and visib... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7294872 | Solid state image pickup device and its manufacture method PROBLEM To provide a high quality solid state image pickup device. SOLUTION Impurities are implanted into a semiconductor substrate to form vertical transfer channels for transferring electric charges in a first direction and to form a drain near each of the vertica... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7289148 | Devices and methods for improving the image quality in an image sensor The present invention is related to an image sensor comprising an array of rows (i) and columns (j) of pixels (Xij), all the pixels of one column of the array being connected to at least one common pixel output line (Ij) having at least one mem... | 10/30/2007 |
| 7274052 | CCD charge-splitter adjustment by static charge gradient A charge splitter for separating an incoming charge packet into two outgoing packets while the charge is in a static state, i.e., not while it is flowing down a channel or over a barrier. A splitting gate may have a biasing charge impressed upon it, such as via the ... | 09/25/2007 |
| 7271836 | Solid state image pickup device capable of draining unnecessary charge and driving method thereof A drain region is formed along a horizontal charge transfer channel constituting a horizontal charge transfer element, and a barrier region for charges is formed between the horizontal charge transfer channel and drain region. A two-electrode element is formed by us... | 09/18/2007 |
| 7262445 | Charge transfer device and solid-state image pickup device In a charge transfer device which has many two-layered transfer electrodes, 8L disposed along a charge transfer direction X above a transfer channel is driven with two-phase driving pulses supplied to the transfer electrodes of the second layer, the transfer ... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7253458 | CMOS image sensor A complementary metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (CMOS-FET) image sensor. An active photosensing pixel is formed on a substrate. At least one side of the pixel has a width equal to or less than approximately 3 μm. At least one dielectric layer is d... | 08/07/2007 |
| 7247919 | Method and device to reduce gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) current in thin gate oxides MOSFETs An integrated circuit which provides a FET device having reduced GIDL current is described. A semiconductor substrate is provided wherein active regions are separated by an isolation region and a gate oxide layer is provided on the active regions. A gate electrode i... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7244971 | Solid state image pickup device A solid state image pickup device comprising: a semiconductor substrate having a surface layer; charge storage regions disposed in the surface layer; vertical channels disposed in the surface layer adjacent to respective columns of the charge storage regions; vertic... | 07/17/2007 |
| 7233038 | Self masking contact using an angled implant A method of implanting, for example, a phosphorous plug over a charge collection region and a method of forming a contact over the phosphorous plug implant and charge collection region. The method allows implantation of phosphorous or other materials without contami... | 06/19/2007 |
| 7223955 | Solid-state imaging element and imaging device with dynamically adjustable sensitivities and method thereof A solid-state imaging element converts light intensity into an electric charge signal and stores the thus-converted electric charge signal through use of a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements arranged in a square lattice pattern on the surface of a semico... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7224009 | Method for forming a low leakage contact in a CMOS imager An imaging device formed as a CMOS semiconductor integrated circuit includes a doped polysilicon contact line between the floating diffusion region and the gate of a source follower output transistor. The doped polysilicon contact line in the CMOS imager decreases l... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7214593 | Passivation for improved bipolar yield A SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor including at least an emitter formed on a SiGe base region wherein the sidewalls of the emitter are protected by a conformal passivation layer. The conformal passivation layer is formed on the exposed sidewalls of said emitte... | 05/08/2007 |
| 7212240 | Imager with a row of photodiodes or pinned photo diodes A TDI sensor includes a first readout register and a plurality of sensor columns. The first readout register includes a plurality of first readout register elements. A first sensor column includes a photogate and a diode photodetector at an end. The diode photodetec... | 05/01/2007 |
| 7208381 | Doping mask and methods of manufacturing charge transfer image device and microelectronic device using the same Provided are a doping mask and methods of manufacturing a charge transfer image device and a microelectronic device using the same. The method includes forming a photoresist film on an entire surface of a substrate or sub-substrate having a peripheral circuit region... | 04/24/2007 |
| 7193252 | Solid-state imaging device and solid-state imaging device array In a photosensitive part 10, arranged from pixels A aligned in n rows and m columns, supply wiring lines 13a and 13b, which are electrically connected and apply transfer voltages to transfer electrodes 12a to 12 | 03/20/2007 |
| 7187411 | Charge transfer device having discharge drain, CCD image sensor, and CCD image pickup system In a CCD image sensor, a CCD line memory is disposed between each vertical charge transfer device and a horizontal charge transfer device to selectively transfer charges from each vertical charge transfer device to the horizontal charge transfer device. A discharge ... | 03/06/2007 |
| 7173294 | Image sensor with reduced sensitivity to gamma rays The CCD image sensor addresses the problem of noise, due to background charge generated by Compton scattering of gamma rays. In applications, in which an imager must operate in a high-radiation environment, such background noise reduces the video signal/noise. This ... | 02/06/2007 |
| 7158272 | Image sensor and image reading apparatus An object of this invention is to provide a structure which meets a high-quality reading requirement and realize high-speed color reading when the reading section of a color image forming apparatus adopts a color contact image sensor using CCDs as reading elements. ... | 01/02/2007 |
| 7142233 | Image pickup element To output a color image signal of an arbitrary basic block and facilitate processing on the output side, an image pickup element including a plurality of photodetectors each having a color filter array, a vertical direction selection circuit for selecting in the ver... | 11/28/2006 |
| 7129531 | Programmable resistance memory element with titanium rich adhesion layer A programmable resistance memory element comprising an adhesion layer between the programmable resistance material and at least one of the electrodes. Preferably, the adhesion layer is a titanium rich titanium nitride composition. ... | 10/31/2006 |
| 7105876 | Reticulated gate CCD pixel with diagonal strapping A sensor includes an array of pixels organized in rows and columns and a plurality of metal busses overlaying the array of pixels. A first column of pixels includes a proximal set of first pixels and a distal set of first pixels separated by a first jog region. A se... | 09/12/2006 |
| 7075129 | Image sensor with reduced p-well conductivity An image sensor includes a substrate of the first conductivity type; a channel of the first conductivity type that spans at least a portion of the substrate; a well of the second conductivity type that is positioned between the channel and substrate for a predetermi... | 07/11/2006 |
| 7071505 | Method and apparatus for reducing imager floating diffusion leakage An imager having reduced floating diffusion leakage and a mechanism for improving the storing of collected charge is described. A polysilicon contact is provided between a floating diffusion region and a gate of a source follower output transistor, with the contact ... | 07/04/2006 |
| 7071020 | Method of forming an elevated photodiode in an image sensor The invention provides an elevated photodiode for image sensors and methods of formation of the photodiode. Elevated photodiodes permit a decrease in size requirements for pixel sensor cells while reducing leakage, image lag and barrier problems typically associated... | 07/04/2006 |
| 7061030 | Semiconductor device, a manufacturing method thereof, and a camera A semiconductor device includes a transfer channel for transferring charge generated by photoelectric conversion, an insulating film formed on the transfer channel, and a transfer electrode for applying a transfer voltage to the transfer channel via the insulating f... | 06/13/2006 |
| 7050101 | Solid state image pickup device capable of draining unnecessary charge and driving method thereof A drain region is formed along a horizontal charge transfer channel constituting a horizontal charge transfer element, and a barrier region for charges is formed between the horizontal charge transfer channel and drain region. A two-electrode element is formed by us... | 05/23/2006 |
| 7034876 | Solid-state image pickup device and method for driving the same In a solid-state image pickup device, third transfer electrodes are disposed in parallel to vertical transfer registers, and second transfer electrodes are disposed vertically to the vertical transfer registers. These transfer electrodes are also formed on the read-... | 04/25/2006 |
| 7023481 | Solid state imaging device for alleviating the effect of background light and imaging apparatus including same In a solid state imaging apparatus of the present invention, first and second charge-coupled devices (CCDs) 336A and 336B are prepared as two charge accumulation circuits for one photodiode 330. The first and second CCDs 336A and 336 | 04/04/2006 |
| 7016214 | Semiconductor integrated circuit device A semiconductor integrated circuit device capable of achieving higher integration and simplification of manufacturing processes is provided. Circuitry is provided which includes a first N-channel MOSFET and a first p-channel MOSFET each having a gate insulating diel... | 03/21/2006 |
| 7012644 | Multiple output node charge coupled device A system for optically imaging includes an array of cells, a charge shift register, two or more charge sensing nodes, and a charge demultiplexor. Each cell produces an electrical charge in response to photon stimulation. The charge shift register receives the electr... | 03/14/2006 |
| 7009227 | Photodiode structure and image pixel structure A CMOS imager with two adjacent pixel active area regions without the presence of an intervening trench isolation region that typically separates two adjacent pixels and their associated photodiodes is provided. The shared active area region isolates the two adjacen... | 03/07/2006 |
| 7008816 | Imager photo diode capacitor structure with reduced process variation sensitivity A pixel cell having two capacitors connected in series where each capacitor has a capacitance approximating that of the periphery capacitors and such that the effective capacitance of the series capacitors is smaller than that of each of the periphery capacitors. Th... | 03/07/2006 |
| 6997871 | Multiple view endoscopes An endoscope comprises a sheath, an articulation section adjacent to its distal tip, and two or more separate optical channels that produce two or more distinct views. Each of the optical channels comprises an objective lens and a means of capturing and/or viewing t... | 02/14/2006 |