Image sensors and sensing methods to obtain Time-of-Flight and phase detection information

A method, comprising:

• providing a time-of-flight (ToF) image sensor pixel that includes a plurality of sub-pixels, wherein the plurality of sub-pixels is covered by a microlens;
• using a read-out circuit (ROC) to read out ToF signals of each sub-pixel individually, by:
• obtaining a stereo depth map and an ToF map calculated from the ToF signals;
• analyzing the stereo depth map and the ToF depth map for assigning stereo scores to segments of the stereo depth map and for assigning ToF scores to the segments of the ToF depth map;
• and
• generating a fused depth map by using stereo depth map data for segments that have high stereo scores and using ToF depth map data for segments that have high ToF scores.