Celebrity Inventors
Glam girl Heddy Lamar may have used her good looks to good effect on the silver screen, but she put her smarts to better use as an inventor. During World War II, she co-patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was considered years ahead of its time.
PatentStorm News
Make the Most of Our Site
See this month's Top Inventors and Most Cited Patents.
Stay on top of the latest innovations by subscribing to an RSS feed.
Registered users: Manage your profile.
| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7920188 | Method and apparatus for processing a pixel signal An NchMOS transistor Q71 on the input side of a current mirror 70 is made function as a voltage operating-point setting portion so that a pixel signal line potential (voltage of a horizontal signal line 20) would be constantly stable nearly at t... | 04/05/2011 |
| 7889251 | Method and device for white level calibration Calibrating a white level in an image scanning device. A target white level is accessed. A high white level is determined for pixel data output by an amplifier. A gain adjustment to the amplifier is determined to correct a portion of an error between the target whit... | 02/15/2011 |
| 7825967 | Column-wise clamp voltage driver for suppression of noise in an imager An imager having column-wise clamp voltage drivers. Each clamp voltage driver is substantially identical to the output circuitry of the imager's pixels in that column and is designed to track the noise experienced by the readout pixels. Each clamp voltage driver gen... | 11/02/2010 |
| 7728888 | Clamping circuit and digital camera system having the clamping circuit A clamping circuit including: a subtracter for subtracting a clamping correction voltage from an input analog voltage signal; A/D converter for converting an analog voltage signal from the subtracter into a digital voltage signal of M bits; a potential difference de... | 06/01/2010 |
| 7646412 | DC level control method, clamp circuit, and imaging apparatus A dc level control method for holding a dc level of a clamp portion in an electric signal to be a prescribed value is disclosed, wherein the method comprises the steps of: comparing a dc level of a sampling interval in said electric signal with a predetermined refer... | 01/12/2010 |
| 7623164 | Image sensing apparatus and method for accurate dark current recovery of an image signal An object of this invention is to enable performing accurate DC recovery operation for an output signal from an image sensing element, and obtaining a high-quality image free from any image degradation such as a horizontal streak. To achieve this object, an image se... | 11/24/2009 |
| 7432965 | Black level correcting device and electronic camera A black level correcting device includes: an A/D converting section converting a result of subtracting a feedback signal from an input pixel signal into a pixel value to be output; and a feedback controlling section generating the feedback signal and having a holdin... | 10/07/2008 |
| 7414655 | Charge-coupled device having multiple readout paths for multiple outputs An image sensor comprising a plurality of pixels arranged in at least two sub-arrays; first and second delay areas respectively connected to each sub-array for respectively receiving charge from the sub-array; wherein a pitch of the first delay area is different fro... | 08/19/2008 |
| 7397507 | Method and apparatus for processing a pixel signal An NchMOS transistor Q71 on the input side of a current mirror 70 is made function as a voltage operating-point setting portion so that a pixel signal line potential (voltage of a horizontal signal line 20) would be constantly stable nearly at t... | 07/08/2008 |
| 7394491 | Image sensor having clamp circuit An image sensor of the present invention prevents the phenomenon that surrounding background of a bright object reflecting or emitting strong light like the sun is presented at dark and improves image quality of the image sensor by controlling the brightness of the ... | 07/01/2008 |
| 7372493 | Column-wise clamp voltage driver for suppression of noise in an imager An imager having column-wise clamp voltage drivers. Each clamp voltage driver is substantially identical to the output circuitry of the imager's pixels in that column and is designed to track the noise experienced by the readout pixels. Each clamp voltage driver gen... | 05/13/2008 |
| 7358995 | Captured-image-signal processing method and apparatus and imaging apparatus An imaging apparatus includes a solid-state imaging device that outputs a captured image signal in current mode, which in turn is subjected to CDS processing in current mode by a current signal detector, thus suppressing FPN noise. A captured image signal output by ... | 04/15/2008 |
| 7355640 | Image capturing device An image capturing device having a function of clamping an image signal. When the image capturing device is activated, a synchronous signal generating section begins creation of a horizontal synchronous signal, and a counter begins counting a pulse of the horizontal... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7295234 | DC level control method, clamp circuit, and imaging apparatus A dc level control method for holding a dc level of a clamp portion in an electric signal to be a prescribed value is disclosed, wherein the method comprises the steps of: comparing a dc level of a sampling interval in said electric signal with a predetermined refer... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7245322 | Imaging apparatus The invention provides an imaging apparatus in which when a difference in sensitivity between two photosensitive elements having different sensitivities is used to achieve a wide dynamic range, a correction amount of a low sensitivity portion is determined from info... | 07/17/2007 |
| 7245321 | Readout circuit with gain and analog-to-digital conversion for image sensor A CMOS imager includes an array of active pixel sensors, wherein each pixel is associated with a respective column in the array. The imager also includes multiple circuits for reading out values of pixels from the active sensor array. Each readout circuit can be ass... | 07/17/2007 |
| 7236192 | Image-sensing device Based on the output signal of an area sensor 1, a level adjustment circuit 2 adjusts the bias voltage fed to the transistors provided within the individual pixels of the area sensor 1 and operating in a subthreshold region and thereby adjusts th... | 06/26/2007 |
| 7236203 | Video circuitry for controlling signal gain and reference black level An apparatus and method for controlling signal gain and reference black level of a video signal. Magnitudes of signal gain and reference voltage for a subject video signal are determined by a common digital control signal, while the reference voltage determines the ... | 06/26/2007 |
| 7202892 | Image pickup method and apparatus, and image processing method and apparatus for adapting to synthesize a plurality of images In an image pickup apparatus, a level compensator compensates the level of an image xL (i, j) sensed by an image sensor by exposure for a long time on the basis of the exposure of the image to produce a compensated image xL′ (i, j), while another level compensator... | 04/10/2007 |
| 7193652 | Dynamic range video recording and playback system and method An improved method and system for capturing and displaying a series of successive video images using at least first and second different exposure times, so that first video images captured using said first exposure time occur alternately in said series with second v... | 03/20/2007 |
| 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 |
| 7141775 | Solid-state image-pickup device with column-line amplifiers and limiters The levels of the power supply and the ground are kept constant against a parasitic resistance by keeping the constant current of an amplifier irrespective of the size of a pixel signal and the gain of the amplifier in this case in an image signal reading circuit sy... | 11/28/2006 |
| 7138993 | LCD with integrated switches for DC restore An AC-coupled display driver circuit includes one or more DC-restore switches that are integrated within a liquid crystal display. A liquid crystal display system includes a coupling capacitor coupled at one end to a system input video signal, the coupling capacitor... | 11/21/2006 |
| 7135665 | Solid-state image sensing apparatus including a noise suppressing circuit A solid-state image sensing apparatus of an aspect of this invention can appropriately correct the black level of a video signal even when a high-luminance state or spotlight exists. The apparatus includes an effective pixel unit to receive object light, and a light... | 11/14/2006 |
| 7111939 | Image display system with body position compensation An image display system includes: an image projector including a mirror optical element for forming an exit pupil for viewing an image at a viewing location; a viewer eye position detector for generating a signal representing the position of a viewer's eyes relative... | 09/26/2006 |
| 7102672 | Integrated CMOS imaging array dark current monitor A method, apparatus, and system for accounting for dark current in the output of an imaging array is presented. A dark current monitor on the monolithic semiconductor imaging array is provided. The dark current monitor may be darkened pixels of the imaging array, da... | 09/05/2006 |
| 7084911 | Black level calibration method for imager with hysteresis comparison and adaptive step size The present invention provides a method and apparatus for calibrating a black level in an imager to reduce flicker noise. A first and a second range is set. The first range corresponds to a range that is larger than a noise level at a highest PGA gain. The second ra... | 08/01/2006 |
| 7071977 | Solid-state image sensing device When a signal output by a solid-state image sensing device is clamped to a predetermined reference potential, a high voltage generated in a transfer suspension period after the clamping as generally supplied to an A/D converter is generated. A sample/hold output Va ... | 07/04/2006 |
| 7064785 | Apparatus and method of correcting for dark current in a solid state image sensor Apparatus and method of correcting for dark current in a solid state image sensor, include capturing an image with the image sensor to produce a digital image having pixel values; correcting the pixel values with a dark level correction value; employing a control sy... | 06/20/2006 |
| 7061531 | Solid state imaging device having timing signal generation circuit and clamping circuit An imaging device uses a solid state imaging element, during multi-field accumulation to prevent shading and oscillatory phenomena such as repeated black and white patterns. A signal is supplied from a timing signal generation circuit to switches, and controls the O... | 06/13/2006 |
| 6952240 | Image sampling circuit with a blank reference combined with the video input A programmable gain amplifier having three separately programmable amplifiers. A programmable transconductance amplifier is followed by a programmable transimpedance amplifier, then a programmable switched capacitor amplifier. In one embodiment, this programmable ga... | 10/04/2005 |
| 6950132 | Image sensor and method for driving an image sensor for reducing fixed pattern noise There is provided a method of driving an image sensor which can remove FPN resulting from inter-chip variations without requiring any dark correction. A semiconductor photosensor chip has a plurality of sensor modules mounted on a mounting substrate, and a semicondu... | 09/27/2005 |
| 6900837 | Image sensor and pixel reading method used this image sensor An image sensor and a pixel reading method used this image sensor, in which the accuracy of a black level can be increased by that an optical black region being the black level reference of signals is read every horizontal line at a local or random access mode, are ... | 05/31/2005 |
| 6792141 | Infrared detection system and method with histogram based manual level and gain control with local gain clipping A system and method for processing digital video. The invention allows for manual level and gain adjustment of the video similar to that used in a histogram based automatic level and gain control system using a cumulative distribution function. Level changes are mad... | 09/14/2004 |
| 6774942 | Black level offset calibration system for CCD image digitizer An improved offset correction circuit for an image digitizing system having a correlated double sample and hold circuit, a programmable gain amplifier and an analog-to-digital converter. The output of the analog-to-digital converter is provided to a dual offset corr... | 08/10/2004 |
| 6765613 | Low light sensor signal to noise improvement A number of different elements are added together in a staggered way to avoid the total loss of resolution caused by the binning process. The circuit for doing this includes a variable gain. In a second circuit for carrying this out, to fixed pattern noise reduction... | 07/20/2004 |
| 6738098 | Video amplifier with integrated DC level shifting A method and apparatus within a television receiver for electronically aligning signals within the receiver by controlling support circuitry for an IF module. A video amplifier is coupled to an output of the IF module. A control voltage source (DAC 114) contr... | 05/18/2004 |
| 6720999 | CCD imager analog processor systems and methods A processing system for a charge coupled device (CCD) or CMOS imaging system includes a multi-mode, multiple current level, correlated double sample and variable gain (CDS/VGA) circuit for receiving data from a CCD system, subject to horizontal and vertical timing s... | 04/13/2004 |
| 6608647 | Methods and apparatus for charge coupled device image acquisition with independent integration and readout Methods and apparatus for image acquisition utilize a charge coupled device having a photosensitive region that responds to an applied transfer signal by transferring charge accumulated on the collection sites to the corresponding readout sites. The non-p... | 08/19/2003 |
| 6580465 | Clamp voltage generating circuit and clamp level adjusting method A low pass filter smooths a voltage corresponding to a least significant bit of a digital image signal outputted from an A/D convertor, and outputs the smoothed voltage to a sample-and-hold circuit. In the sample-and-hold circuit, a sample-hold-pulse is a... | 06/17/2003 |
