High-speed light sensing apparatus
AssigneeArtilux, Inc.
InventorsYun-Chung Na, Che-Fu Liang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus including a semiconductor substrate; an absorption layer coupled to the semiconductor substrate, the absorption layer including a photodiode region configured to absorb photons and to generate photo-carriers from the absorbed photons; one or more first switches controlled by a first control signal, the one or more first switches configured to collect at least a portion of the photo-carriers based on the first control signal; and one or more second switches controlled by a second control signal, the one or more second switches configured to collect at least a portion of the photo-carriers based on the second control signal, where the second control signal is different from the first control signal.
Claims20
An optical apparatus, comprising:
- a silicon substrate that includes an n-doped region;
- and
- multiple pixels supported by the silicon substrate, each pixel of the multiple pixels comprising an absorption region comprising germanium, the absorption region comprising a p-doped region,
- wherein the absorption region is configured to absorb photons reflected from a three-dimensional object and to generate photo-carriers in response to the absorbed photons, and
- wherein the absorption region of each pixel of the multiple pixels is arranged between the three-dimensional object and the silicon substrate.
An optical sensor system comprising:
- a light source;
- and
- an optical sensor comprising multiple pixels supported by a semiconductor substrate,
- wherein each pixel of the multiple pixels comprises an absorption region having a different material composition from the semiconductor substrate,
- wherein the absorption region is configured to absorb at least a portion of photons generated by the light source and to generate photo-carriers, and
- wherein the multiple pixels comprise:
- a first pixel including a first switch configured to collect, based on a first control signal, a first portion of photo-carriers generated by a first absorption region of the first pixel;
- and
- a second pixel including a second switch configured to collect, based on a second control signal, a second portion of photo-carriers generated by a second absorption region of the second pixel,
- wherein the first control signal and the second control signal are voltage signals having independent voltage values.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.