CMOS image sensor for suppressing degradation of spatial resolution and generating compressed image signals
AssigneeFujitsu Limited
InventorsJun Funakoshi, Katsuyoshi Yamamoto
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention is an image sensor having a pixel array, which arranges pixels having photoelectric conversion circuits in rows and columns; and a pixel selecting circuit for selecting each pixel, wherein the pixel selecting circuit selects pixels of all rows and/or pixels of all columns, and selects a pixel signal at every plural pixels among the selected pixel signals, and pixels selected from a pixel block of a plurality of rows and columns within the pixel array are dispersed within this pixel block.
Claims20
A color image sensor comprising:
- a pixel array, in which pixels having photoelectric conversion circuits are arranged in rows and columns;
- and
- a pixel selecting circuit having a row selecting circuit and a column selecting circuit;
- wherein said pixel selecting circuit selects the pixels of all the rows and/or the pixels of all the columns, selects a pixel signal at intervals of a plurality of pixels from among the selected pixel signals, and outputs the finally selected pixel signals.
A color image sensor comprising:
- a pixel array, in which pixels having photoelectric conversion circuits are arranged in rows and columns;
- a row selecting circuit for selecting pixels in the row direction of said pixel array;
- sample-and-hold circuits, provided at each column, for respectively sampling and holding pixel signals read out from said pixel array;
- and
- a column selecting circuit for selecting pixel signals which said sample-and-hold circuits hold,
- wherein said sample-and-hold circuits average pixel signals of the same color, which are close to one another in the row direction and/or column direction of said pixel array.
The color image sensor accordingtoclaim9, wherein said sample-and-hold circuits have holding capacitors for holding signals corresponding to pixel signals, and said averaged pixel signals are generated by connecting a plurality of holding capacitors in parallel.
A black-and-white image sensor comprising:
- a pixel array, in which pixels having photoelectric conversion circuits are arranged in rows and columns;
- a row selecting circuit for selecting pixels in the row direction of said pixel array;
- sample-and-hold circuits, disposed at each column, for respectively sampling and holding pixel signals read out from said pixel array;
- and
- a column selecting circuit for selecting pixel signals, which said sample-and-hold circuits hold,
- wherein said sample-and-hold circuits average pixel signals, which are close to one another in the row direction and/or the column direction of said pixel array.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.