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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8159580 | Solid-state imaging device and imaging apparatus using the same Providing a solid-state imaging device having a degree of freedom capable of changing which of the pixels functions as a pixel having a photoelectric converter portion bisected in which direction. When a gate electrode 67 is high and a gate electrode 68 | 04/17/2012 |
| 8144223 | Imaging device The present invention relates to improved imaging devices having high dynamic range and to monitoring and automatic control systems incorporating the improved imaging devices. ... | 03/27/2012 |
| 8077238 | Wide dynamic range sensor having a pinned diode with multiple pinned voltages A pixel cell has controlled photosensor anti-blooming leakage by having dual pinned voltage regions, one of which is used to set the anti-blooming characteristics of the photosensor. Additional exemplary embodiments also employ an anti-blooming transistor in conjunc... | 12/13/2011 |
| 7508432 | CCD with improved substrate voltage setting circuit An image sensor includes a plurality of pixels for converting incident photons into electrical charge; an overflow drain to draw off excess charge from at one or more of the pixels; a mechanism for summing charge from two or more of the pixels; a first network of re... | 03/24/2009 |
| 7433099 | Image sensing apparatus, image sensing method, program, and storage medium An object of this invention is to quickly complete white balance calculation in photographing. To achieve this object, an image sensing apparatus includes an image sensing element in which a line on which first and second color filters are arranged and a line on whi... | 10/07/2008 |
| 7391455 | Solid-state imaging apparatus for controlling a sweep transfer period in dependence upon the amount of unnecessary charges to be swept out A solid-state image pickup apparatus includes a solid-state image sensor having photosensitive cells and vertical transfer paths. The cells are bidimensionally arranged for converting light incident from a subject via optics to electric charges corresponding to the ... | 06/24/2008 |
| 7388611 | Solid-state image-taking apparatus, solid-state image-taking system, and apparatus and method for driving the solid-state image-taking apparatus A solid-state image-taking system including a gate voltage control unit 31 and a substrate voltage control unit 32, for preventing generation of a defective image such as a residual image, without increasing the read voltage. The gate voltage control u... | 06/17/2008 |
| 7372495 | CMOS aps with stacked avalanche multiplication layer and low voltage readout electronics An image sensor includes a pixel having a protection circuit connected to a charge multiplying photoconversion layer. The protection circuit prevents the pixel circuit from breaking down when the voltage in the pixel circuit reaches the operating voltage applied to ... | 05/13/2008 |
| 7365786 | Solid state image sensing apparatus with enhanced sensitivity realized by improving linear characteristic of photodiode and its driving method A driver unit of a solid state image sensing apparatus changes the substrate bias voltage from a first bias voltage to a second bias voltage which is lower than the first bias voltage and is for making a height of an overflow barrier higher than a height of the barr... | 04/29/2008 |
| 7355644 | Linear image sensor In a linear image sensor, a shutter structure includes: a shutter gate electrode provided between photodiode arrays; and a shutter drain provided below the shutter gate electrode. With this construction, a layout area is reduced and the number of scanning operations... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7336305 | Solid-state image capturing device, smear correcting method thereof and digital still camera using the same In a solid-state image capturing device 100 comprising pixel arrays 11r, 11g and 11b arranged in a row direction and a column direction which is orthogonal thereto and a vertical register 12 including a plurali... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7292274 | Solid-state image pickup device driving method and image capturing apparatus for outputting high-resolution signals for still images and moving images of improved quality at a high frame rate A CPU 14 drives the CCD2 by switching its driving mode between an omission readout mode and a summation readout mode. Summing the signal charge of pixels in the summation readout mode offers an increased sensitivity. The omission readout mode reduces s... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7285764 | Solid state imaging device and method of driving the same An imaging device comprising: a photoelectric conversion element generating photo-generated charges; an accumulation well accumulating the charges; a modulation well storing the charges; a modulation transistor having a channel threshold voltage controlled by the st... | 10/23/2007 |
| 7259790 | MOS type solid-state image pickup device and driving method comprised of a photodiode a detection portion and a transfer transistor An MOS type solid-state image pickup device including pixels each of which comprises a photodiode PD, a detection portion N and a transfer transistor QT for transferring the charges accumulated in the photodiode PD to the detection portion N, wherein the ... | 08/21/2007 |
| 7242426 | Digital still camera for recording images in high and low sensitivity modes The present invention provides a digital still camera that can read high quality image data from a solid state image pickup device in both the low and the high sensitivity modes. The digital still camera according to the present invention includes shooting mode sele... | 07/10/2007 |
| 7233092 | Permanent magnet synchronous motor The present invention provides a permanent-magnet-synchronous-motor having a stator with concentrated windings with the following structure so that permanent magnet (6) is hard to subjected to demagnetization magnetic field: 0.3 Lg | 06/19/2007 |
| 7227572 | Image sensing apparatus, signal processing method thereof, program, and storage medium This invention is to shorten the time of white balance processing. In order to achieve this object, this invention provides an image sensing apparatus including an image sensing section which senses an object image and scans charge of pixels by interlaced-scanning t... | 06/05/2007 |
| 7224388 | Wide dynamic range active pixel with knee response A pixel circuit, and a method for operating a pixel circuit, to provide a multiple knee response characteristic. In one embodiment of the invention, one or more feed-through pulse (FTP) signals are transmitted to an integration node to end a first linear integration... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7218346 | Method for driving solid-state image pickup device A method to overcome a disadvantage that the signal charges decrease depending upon the storage time in a photo-electric conversion unit of a solid-state image pickup device. At the moment t2 when a prescribed exposure time (t1−t2)... | 05/15/2007 |
| 7205523 | Solid state image pickup device, method of manufacturing the same, and camera The solid state image pickup device includes a pixel, the pixel including: a photoelectric conversion region for generating carrier by photoelectric conversion and accumulating the carrier; a carrier holding region for accumulating carrier flowing out from the photo... | 04/17/2007 |
| 7199826 | Thin-out drive method for CCD image sensor A solid-state image pickup device includes photoelectric converters in row-column matrix configuration, VCCDs, one for each column, a color filter disposed above each converter to form a color filter array including layouts each including n rows, and a drive circuit... | 04/03/2007 |
| 7184083 | Solid state image pickup apparatus of low power consumption and its driving method A charge transfer device whose output end is electrically connected to a charge detector circuit is driven by negative pulse voltage trains to reduce power consumption of the charge detector circuit. ... | 02/27/2007 |
| 7173297 | Solid-state imaging device The invention provides a solid-state imaging device including a pixel array having a plurality of pixels arranged in a matrix. The pixels can each include a photo diode that generates carriers depending on the intensity of incident light, an accumulation region that... | 02/06/2007 |
| 7164445 | Method and apparatus for adjusting sweep-out frequency of an imaging apparatus responsive to the condition of a power source An operating condition judging circuit judges a supply voltage level of a power supply source. A controller controls a frequency of sweep-out of unnecessary charge in the imaging element based on an output level of the power supply source for reducing peak consumed ... | 01/16/2007 |
| 7161625 | Image pickup apparatus For preventing the blooming phenomenon, there is provided an image pickup apparatus comprising a solid-state image pickup device adapted for a first readout method in which plural pixels are added to be read and a second readout method in which plural pixels are not... | 01/09/2007 |
| 7106373 | Method for increasing dynamic range of a pixel by multiple incomplete reset A method is disclosed for obtaining a read-out signal of a pixel having at least a photosensitive element with a charge storage node. Charge carriers are converted from radiation impinging on the photosensitive element. While acquiring charge carriers on said charge... | 09/12/2006 |
| 7102680 | Image pickup device capable of adjusting the overflow level of the sensor based on the read out mode The driving device of a solid-state imaging device comprises a driving unit for driving the solid-state imaging device in either an addition driving mode in which a plurality of pixels are added and read as a single pixel or a non-addition driving mode, and a substr... | 09/05/2006 |
| 7071983 | System and method for controlling photosensitive charge transfers A system for controlling photosensitive charge transfers utilizes an array of photosensitive elements, a transfer gate, a charge transfer register, and a controller. The transfer gate is coupled to the photosensitive elements, and the charge transfer register is cou... | 07/04/2006 |
| 7030923 | Digital camera having overlapped exposure A digital camera includes a shutter button. When taking a still picture of a subject in response to operation of the shutter button, a TG carries out first exposure and second exposure. The first exposure and the second exposure are simultaneously started by the sus... | 04/18/2006 |
| 7015966 | Reducing discontinuities in segmented imaging sensors A segmented imaging sensor having plural output pipelines in correspondence to the number of segments. Discontinuities between segments of the electronic imaging sensor are reduced by providing duplicated pixel values for pixels in an overlap region between segments... | 03/21/2006 |
| 6980242 | Solid state image sensing device A solid-state image sensing device comprising a photoelectric converter portion, a solid-state image sensor, and a controlling means. The photoelectric converter portion has a plurality of photoelectric converters arranged in two dimensions on a semiconductor substr... | 12/27/2005 |
| 6946638 | Solid-state imaging device and method of driving the same A solid-state imaging device comprising: a photoelectric conversion element generating photo-generated charges; an accumulation well accumulating the charges; a modulation well holding the charges from the accumulation well; a modulation transistor controlled by the... | 09/20/2005 |
| 6947087 | Solid-state imaging device with dynamic range control A solid-state imaging device includes unit cells, arranged in a matrix of rows and columns, each having a photodiode for photoelectrically converting incident light to store signal charges, a readout transistor Td for reading out the signal charges and amplifying tr... | 09/20/2005 |
| RE38771 | Exposure controller having coring value adapted to the discharge pulse count An exposure controller comprises a discharge pulse calculation circuit for calculating a discharge pulse count to be output to a solid-state image pickup device within one field period, and a coring circuit for defining the quotient obtained from the discharge pulse... | 08/09/2005 |
| 6917029 | Four-component pixel structure leading to improved image quality Pixel structures and a read-out method of pixels are disclosed. The pixel structures and the read-out method improve the image quality of imaging devices or imaging sensors based on such pixels. A pixel comprises in a parallel circuit configuration a radiation sensi... | 07/12/2005 |
| 6833871 | Exposure control in electronic cameras by detecting overflow from active pixels A method for controlling the exposure of an active pixel array electronic still camera includes the steps of: integrating photocurrent in each pixel during an integration time period; collecting overflow charge from all pixels in the array during the integration tim... | 12/21/2004 |
| 6760073 | Solid-state image sensor There is provided a solid-state image sensor including (a) a plurality of first charge transfer sections each for vertically transferring electric charges, formed on a surface of a semiconductor layer, (b) a second charge transfer section for horizontally transferri... | 07/06/2004 |
| 6693671 | Fast-dump structure for full-frame image sensors with lod antiblooming structures A structure for a fast-dump gate for charge coupled devices that does not require a separate contact to a drain region instead using the existing drain of a lateral overflow drain (LOD) typically used for antiblooming purposes. LOD structures are typicall... | 02/17/2004 |
| 6677992 | Imaging apparatus offering dynamic range that is expandable by weighting two image signals produced during different exposure times with two coefficients whose sum is 1 and adding them up An object is imaged continuously during a first exposure time and a second exposure time shorter than the first exposure time. Weights, one of which decreases monotonously and the other of which increases monotonously, are applied to first and second resu... | 01/13/2004 |
| 6646683 | Iris control of a CCD camera using selective well dumping A method and apparatus for applying a selective shutter to an imaging device. An image is received via a CCD unit and a portion of the received image that presents an overflow condition is determined. The amount of time light from the portion of the image... | 11/11/2003 |
