Method Of Driving An Image Sensor
AssigneeSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
InventorsJung-chak Ahn, Yi-Tae Kim
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Abstract
In a method of driving an image sensor, incident light is converted into electric charges in a photoelectric conversion region during a first operation mode. At least one of collected electric charges and overflowed electric charges is accumulated in a floating diffusion region based on illuminance of the incident light. The collected electric charges indicate electric charges that are collected in the photoelectric conversion region. The overflowed electric charges indicate electric charges that have overflowed from the photoelectric conversion region.
Claims20
A method of driving an image sensor, the method comprising:
- converting incident light into electric charges in a photoelectric conversion region during a first operation mode;
- and
- accumulating at least one of collected electric charges and overflowed electric charges in a floating diffusion region based on illuminance of the incident light, the collected electric charges indicating electric charges that are collected in the photoelectric conversion region, the overflowed electric charges indicating electric charges that have overflowed from the photoelectric conversion region.
A method of operating an image sensor, the method comprising:
- converting incident light into electric charges in a photoelectric conversion region during an integration operation;
- and
- collecting overflow charges, the overflow charges being electric charges which exceed a charge storage capacity of the photoelectric conversion region in a floating diffusion region during the integration operation, if the a level of the incident light exceeds a reference level.
A method of operating an image sensor, the method comprising:
- generating a first output signal during a read out operation based on overflow charges collected by a floating diffusion region, the overflow charges being charges which exceeded a charge storage capacity of a photoelectric conversion region during an integration operation;
- generating a reference signal during the read out operation, the reference signal representing a voltage level of the floating diffusion region in a reset state;
- generating a second output signal during the read out operation based on charges transferred from the photoelectric conversion region to the floating diffusion region during the read out operation;
- and
- generating an image signal based on the first output signal, the second output signal, and the reference signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.