Scanning circuit of image sensor
AssigneeHonda Motor Co., Ltd.
InventorsMakoto Furukawa, Sukeyuki Shinotsuka, Jiro Kurita
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Abstract
Is disclosed a scanning circuit of an image sensor using light sensor circuits each representing a unit pixel and producing a sensor signal corresponding to a current flowing in a photoelectric converting element, which is provided with a means for saturating pixel signals by previously turning on the light sensor circuits and sequentially reading saturated pixel sensor signals, achieving stable and high-speed reading-out of the sensor signals from the image sensor.
Claims19
An image sensor scanning circuit for reading out pixel light sensor signals from an image sensor using pixel light sensor circuits each representing a unit pixel and being capable of producing a pixel light sensor signal corresponding to an photocurrent flowing in a photoelectric converting element, wherein it is provided with a means for saturating each pixel sensor signal by previously turning on each pixel sensor circuit and then reading the pixel sensor signal.
An image sensor scanning circuit for reading out pixel light sensor signals, comprising
- pixel light sensor circuits, each pixel light sensor circuit including a photoelectric converting element generating a photocurrent representing a pixel and means for producing a pixel light sensor signal corresponding to the photocurrent flowing in the photoelectric converting element;
- means for saturating each pixel sensor signal by turning on each pixel light sensor circuit before reading the pixel sensor signal.
A method for conditioning pixel light sensor signals from an image sensor, comprising
- turning on selected ones of pixel light sensor circuits;
- waiting sufficient time for the selected ones of the pixel light sensor circuits to generate saturated pixel sensor signals;
- reading the saturated pixel sensor signals.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.