Photoelectric conversion device
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHIROSHI SEKINE, YASUHARU OTA
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Abstract
A conversion device includes a plurality of avalanche photodiodes, a plurality of microlenses, a first counter configured to count a first pulsed signal based on a photon incident on a first avalanche photodiode of the plurality of avalanche photodiodes, a second counter configured to count a second pulsed signal based on a photon incident on a second avalanche photodiode of the plurality of avalanche photodiodes, and a third counter configured to count a combined pulsed signal generated by combining the first pulsed signal and the second pulsed signal. One of the plurality of microlenses is arranged to guide a photon incident thereon to the first avalanche photodiode and the second avalanche photodiode.
Claims20
A conversion device comprising:
- a plurality of avalanche photodiodes;
- a plurality of microlenses;
- a first counter configured to count a first pulsed signal based on a photon incident on a first avalanche photodiode of the plurality of avalanche photodiodes;
- a second counter configured to count a second pulsed signal based on a photon incident on a second avalanche photodiode of the plurality of avalanche photodiodes;
- and
- a third counter configured to count a combined pulsed signal generated by combining the first pulsed signal and the second pulsed signal,
- wherein one of the plurality of microlenses is arranged to guide a photon incident thereon to the first avalanche photodiode and the second avalanche photodiode.
A conversion device comprising:
- a plurality of avalanche photodiodes;
- a first counter configured to count a first pulsed signal based on a photon incident on a first avalanche photodiode of the plurality of avalanche photodiodes;
- a second counter configured to count a second pulsed signal based on a photon incident on a second avalanche photodiode of the plurality of avalanche photodiodes;
- and
- a third counter configured to count a combined pulsed signal generated by combining the first pulsed signal and the second pulsed signal,
- wherein count values read from the first counter and the second counter are used for focus detection, and
- wherein a count value read from the third counter is used for image generation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.