Column ADC
AssigneeLife Technologies Corporation
InventorKeith G. Fife
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The described embodiments may provide a chemical detection circuit. The chemical detection circuit may comprise a column of chemically-sensitive pixels. Each chemically-sensitive pixel may comprise a chemically-sensitive transistor, and a row selection device. The chemical detection circuit may further comprise a column interface circuit coupled to the column of chemically-sensitive pixels and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) coupled to the column interface circuit. Each column interface circuit and column-level ADC may be arrayed with other identical circuits and share critical resources such as biasing and voltage references, thereby saving area and power.
Claims9
A method of using a chemically-sensitive sensor device, comprising:
- selecting a first tile of an array of pixels, the array of pixels arranged in a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, each pixel including a chemically-sensitive field effect transistor (chemFET) and a row select transistor;
- selecting a first group of first columns and a first group of second columns from a first row of a first quadrant of the first tile array of pixels,
- reading out data in parallel for the first group of first columns through a first output buffer of a first output circuit and for the first group of second columns though a second output buffer of a second output circuit;
- and
- repeating sequentially selecting each of a next group of first columns and each of a next group of second columns and sequentially reading out data in parallel for each next group of first columns and each next group of second columns until all first row pixels for the first quadrant have been read.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.