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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8169511 | Imaging apparatus and photographing control method After an end of exposure, a data level of OB signals that are imaging signals output from OB portion 400 are sampled by a CDS circuit 6 twice, to artificially generate two OB signals from each OB signal. Thereby, assuming that the total number of OB si... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8154631 | Compensation of leakage current and residual signals for integrating detector based on direct X-ray conversion The application describes an X-ray detector, which uses direct X-ray conversion (DiCo) combined with CMOS pixel circuits. DiCo materials have to be used with high voltage to achieve a high field strength. This makes the sensor prone to leakage currents, which falsif... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8149303 | Methods for capturing and reading out images from an image sensor Multiple images are captured where the exposure times for some of the images overlap and the images are spatially overlapped. Charge packets are transferred from one or more portions of pixels after particular integration periods, thereby enabling the portion or por... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8130289 | System, method, and apparatus for correction of dark current error in semiconductor imaging devices Detection cells configured to output signals for dark current error correction. Various embodiments of detection cells accumulate dark charge supplied by dark current sources, and output dark charge signals indicating the amount of accumulated dark charge. The dark ... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8130290 | Black level compensation circuit A black level compensation (BLC) circuit is disclosed. The BLC circuit includes a switched-capacitor (SC) integrator configured to compensate a readout amplifier of an image sensor. An output of the readout amplifier is clamped to a reference voltage at which a blac... | 03/06/2012 |
| 8115835 | Programmable digital black level calibration with feedback control A programmable digital black level calibration circuit comprises a combining circuit, a digital programmable gain amplifier (PGA), and a black level feedback circuit. The combining circuit combines a digital image signal for optical black (OB) pixels and a feedback ... | 02/14/2012 |
| 8111306 | Apparatus, method and computer-readable medium for eliminating dark current components of an image pickup device An image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup device including plural imaging planes each having different dark current characteristics, each of the imaging planes having an effective image area and an corresponding optical black (OPB) area. The image pickup ap... | 02/07/2012 |
| 8106975 | Analog dark average circuit and method for an image sensor An analog dark-signal averaging circuit and method for an image sensor are disclosed. Each sub-circuit of the dark-signal averaging circuit correspondingly inputs a signal from a pixel circuit of the image sensor, and each sub-circuit includes a correlated double sa... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8102443 | CCD image sensor having charge storage section between photodiode section and charge transfer section The signal charge corresponding to the amount of light is obtained from a photodiode section and is then stored in a charge storage section under the control of a first control gate. An additional charge storage section may be provided between the photodiode section... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8077227 | Method and apparatus providing analog row noise correction and hot pixel filtering An imaging device and method for operating the device. The imaging device comprises a pixel array that comprises a plurality of imaging pixels and dark reference pixels arranged in columns and rows. The dark reference pixels produce a noise signal that is subtracted... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8040404 | Image pickup apparatus, image signal processing circuit and image signal processing method as well as computer program The present invention provides an image pickup apparatus, including: an image pickup section of the plural channel output type configured to output signals individually corresponding to divisional regions of an image pickup device; a plurality of signal processing s... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8040403 | Image capturing apparatus and dark current component cancel processing method An image capturing apparatus having a shutter for making an image capturing element enter a light-shielded state or a light-unshielded state comprises an image capturing condition storing unit for storing a plurality of image capturing conditions, a dark-time image ... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8023011 | Circuit and method of detecting saturation level of image sensor and image sensor including saturation level detecting circuit A circuit and method of detecting a saturation level of an image sensor including a photodiode using a black pixel circuit included in the image sensor. The saturation level detecting circuit includes a pixel unit, a reset node and a detection controller. The pixel ... | 09/20/2011 |
| 7999865 | Imaging array with modulated pixels An imaging array and a method for operating the same are disclosed. The imaging array includes a plurality of light pixels and a sense amplifier. Each light pixel includes a photodetector that generates and couples a signal indicative of a light exposure to a light ... | 08/16/2011 |
| 7978238 | Image data correction processing based on sensitivity A signal processing device includes a memory which stores correction data in advance. The signal processing device modifies the correction data stored in the memory on the basis of an image sensing signal obtained by causing an image sensing unit to perform image se... | 07/12/2011 |
| 7973836 | Camera, image sensor, and method for decreasing undesirable dark current A method for lowering dark current in an image sensor pixel, the method includes the steps of providing a photosensitive area for receiving incident light which is converted into a charge; providing a gate for transferring charge from the photosensitive area; wherei... | 07/05/2011 |
| 7969487 | Solid-state imaging apparatus A solid-state imaging apparatus including: a pixel section having pixels two-dimensionally arranged into row direction and column direction, each pixel containing a photoelectric conversion section, an accumulation section for accumulating output of the photoelectri... | 06/28/2011 |
| 7961231 | Apparatus, method and computer-readable recording medium containing program for photographing A photographing apparatus includes: a photographing unit having an image pickup device, the photographing unit carrying out first photographing for obtaining a first image with the image pickup device being set in an exposure state, and second photographing for obta... | 06/14/2011 |
| 7956909 | Noise reducing device, electronic camera, and image processing program for reducing image noise by using blackout image A noise reducing device captures image data obtained by capturing a field with an image capturing part and a plurality of blackout image data obtained by capturing the field with the image capturing part under a light shielded state. This device reduces non-correlat... | 06/07/2011 |
| 7952621 | Imaging apparatus having temperature sensor within image sensor wherin apparatus outputs an image whose quality does not degrade if temperature increases within image sensor An imaging apparatus includes an image sensor that comprises a pixel portion having a plurality of pixel sensors configured to generate an image signal, and a plurality of temperature sensors disposed in an area of the pixel portion and configured to generate a temp... | 05/31/2011 |
| 7948533 | Solid state image sensor device having signal noise reduction circuitry A solid-state image sensor includes a pixel array unit including a plurality of pixels arranged in the form of an array, column signal lines adapted to transmit pixel signals output from pixels in respective columns, a noise adding unit adapted to add temporally con... | 05/24/2011 |
| 7924330 | Methods and apparatuses for double sided dark reference pixel row-wise dark level non-uniformity compensation in image signals Methods and apparatuses for row-wise dark level non-uniformity compensation of imaging sensor pixel signals. A column dependent dark reference value is determined as one of a linear and parabolic function of signal values from two areas of dark reference pixels and ... | 04/12/2011 |
| 7907193 | Image capturing apparatus According to this invention, even when an image capturing apparatus has a plurality of read modes, the frame rate can be prevented from decreasing in a high-resolution video photographing mode. The image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor and drive unit. T... | 03/15/2011 |
| 7907192 | Electronic imaging system with adjusted dark floor correction An image sensor includes an array of pixels used in capturing images. First dark floor values are captured at a first time from substantially all of the pixels in the array. Contemporary dark floor values are captured at a second time from substantially all of the p... | 03/15/2011 |
| 7889249 | System and method for canceling dark photocurrent in a color sensor circuit A system and method for canceling dark photocurrent in a color sensor circuit is disclosed. A color sensor is described including a color sensor circuit, a dark color sensor circuit, and a differential amplifier circuit. The color sensor circuit receives photocurren... | 02/15/2011 |
| 7880782 | Image sensor clocking method A method for reducing dark current within a charge-coupled device, the method includes each gate phase n having a capacitance Cn, voltage change on the gate phase n given by ΔVn such | 02/01/2011 |
| 7880781 | Solid-state image pickup apparatus multiplying signal charges depending on imaging circumstances A solid-state image pickup apparatus selects, in a first image pickup circumstance in which dark current is liable to occur in vertical transfer paths of an array of photo-sensors, a first transfer mode in which the potential well capacity in the vertical transfer p... | 02/01/2011 |
| 7872677 | Solid-state imaging apparatus A solid-state imaging apparatus includes: a pixel section where a plurality of pixels for effecting photoelectric conversion are two-dimensionally arranged, having an effective pixel section consisting of pixels for receiving object light and a reference pixel secti... | 01/18/2011 |
| 7868935 | Solid-state imaging apparatus An imaging area includes an effective pixel section and an optical black section. Pixel signals read out from the imaging area, onto a plurality of vertical signal lines, are converted by an AD conversion circuit. The converted pixel signals are sequentially input t... | 01/11/2011 |
| 7843500 | Image capturing device and brightness correcting method thereof An image capturing device includes a capturing module, a numerical transform module, a brightness measuring module, and a processing module. The capturing module includes a lens unit and an image sensor. The lens unit forms an optical image onto the image sensor. Th... | 11/30/2010 |
| 7817197 | Optical black calibration Preview mode low-resolution readouts occur, and then a shutter button on a camera is pressed, which causes an image sensor cleanout operation to occur. Following the cleanout, a high-resolution readout occurs. As rows of sensor values are read, the first rows are ro... | 10/19/2010 |
| 7804532 | Noise reducing device, electronic camera, and image processing program for reducing image noise by using blackout image A noise reducing device captures image data obtained by capturing a field with an image capturing part and a plurality of blackout image data obtained by capturing the field with the image capturing part under a light shielded state. This device reduces non-correlat... | 09/28/2010 |
| 7800660 | Image data processing circuit and image data processing method An object of the present invention is to provide an image data processing circuit and an image data processing method capable of determining a reference signal level corresponding to black in an image with high precision by suppressing occurrence of line dependency ... | 09/21/2010 |
| 7787032 | Method and apparatus for dark current reduction in image sensors Methods and apparatuses for dark current reduction by adjustment of electrical characteristics of transfer gates in pixels within an imaging sensor based on image comparisons. ... | 08/31/2010 |
| 7782379 | Corrective operation in continuous shooting When storage time has changed during a continuous shooting operation, the storage times are stored. When the continuous shooting operation has been completed or an available capacity of a storage medium has become lower than image data, the data is imaged with the r... | 08/24/2010 |
| 7773134 | System and method for canceling dark photocurrent in a color sensor circuit A system and method for canceling dark photocurrent in a color sensor circuit is disclosed. A color sensor is described including a color sensor circuit, a dark color sensor circuit, and a differential amplifier circuit. The color sensor circuit receives photocurren... | 08/10/2010 |
| 7755679 | Apparatus and method for reducing edge effect in an image sensor A method and apparatus for forming dummy pixels exhibiting electrical characteristics virtually identical to the clear pixels of the imaging array. Arrays of such dummy pixels are used to form regions that isolate the main imaging array and sub-arrays of optical bla... | 07/13/2010 |
| 7750955 | Image signal processing apparatus, image signal processing method and camera using the image signal processing apparatus When clamping a signal from a solid state image sensor, float of an optical black pixel output due to incoming of infrared light avoids a malfunction of a clamp from occurring. When clamping a signal from the solid state image sensor, the difference between the opti... | 07/06/2010 |
| 7719581 | Sample and hold circuit and active pixel sensor array sampling system utilizing same An active pixel sensor array sampling system includes a plurality of video circuits and reset circuits. A video circuit generates a video voltage from each one of the pixels of a column of pixels. An associated reset circuit generates a reset voltage for each of the... | 05/18/2010 |
| 7714913 | Optical black level control circuit An optical black level control circuit comprises a digital black level adjusting circuit for generating a black level correction signal by digital processing using a given time constant when an output error between an optical black level and a reference optical blac... | 05/11/2010 |
