Back to results
US 2010/0134480 A1Published application
Drive circuit for semiconductor image sensor array
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorAkehiko Uchiyama
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A refresh control line GR (n) is selected while a read control line GT (n+1) or a read control line GT (n−1), which controls a read switch of a pixel of a semiconductor image sensor array is selected. This configuration allows the read and refresh operations or the refresh and read mode setting operations to be performed simultaneously, and reduces the period for scanning the semiconductor image sensor array.
Claims6
A drive circuit for a semiconductor image sensor array comprising:
- read switches (x, y) each connected to a pixel (x, y) of the semiconductor image sensor array;
- a read control line (x) configured to control all of the read switches arranged along a y coordinate for a certain x coordinate simultaneously;
- refresh switches (x, y) each connected to the pixel (x, y) as pairs with the read switches 12 (x, y);
- a refresh control line (x) configured to control all of the refresh switches arranged along the y coordinate for a certain x coordinate simultaneously;
- a read-control-line drive circuit configured to drive the read control line (x);
- and
- a refresh-control-line drive circuit configured to drive the refresh control line (x),
- wherein the read-control-line drive circuit, as a first set, selects and drives a read control line GT (x), selects and drives a read control line GT (x−m:
- m is a natural number), and then selects and drives a read control line GT (x+m), and repeatedly operates the first set in succession.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.