Readout circuit and method of using the same
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorYuichiro Yamashita
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A readout circuit includes a first analog circuit configured to receive an output of a first sub-array of a pixel array and to output a first signal based on the received output of the first sub-array. A second analog circuit is configured to receive an output of a second sub-array of the pixel array and to output a second signal based on the received output of the second sub-array. A first digital circuit is configured to receive the first signal and convert the first signal to a first digital signal, and receive the second signal and convert the second signal to a second digital signal.
Claims20
A readout circuit comprising:
- a first analog circuit configured to receive an output of a first sub-array of a pixel array and to output a first signal based on the received output of the first sub-array;
- a second analog circuit configured to receive an output of a second sub-array of the pixel array and to output a second signal based on the received output of the second sub-array;
- and
- a first digital circuit configured to:
- receive the first signal and convert the first signal to a first digital signal;
- and
- receive the second signal and convert the second signal to a second digital signal.
A three dimensional integrated circuit (3DIC) comprising:
- a pixel array comprising a plurality of pixels arranged in a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, the pixel array comprising a first sub-array and a second sub-array;
- a first analog circuit configured to receive an output of the first sub-array and to generate a first signal based on the output of the first sub-array;
- a second analog circuit configured to receive an output of the second sub-array and to generate a second signal based on the output of the second sub-array;
- and
- a digital circuit configured to:
- receive the first signal and generate a first digital signal based on the first signal;
- and
- receive the second signal and generate a second digital signal based on the second signal.
A method of operating a readout circuit, the method comprising:
- receiving a first pixel signal from a first sub-array;
- receiving a second pixel signal from a second sub-array;
- generating a first signal based on the first pixel signal using a first analog circuit;
- generating a second signal based on the second pixel signal using a second analog circuit different from the first analog circuit;
- converting the first signal to a first digital signal using a digital circuit;
- and
- converting the second signal to a second digital signal using the digital circuit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.