US 4,805,026 AGranted

Method for driving a CCD area image sensor in a non-interlace scanning and a structure of the CCD area image sensor for driving in the same method

AssigneeNEC Corporation

InventorEiji Oda

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

The invention provides a method for driving a CCD area image sensor. An interline transfer type CCD area image sensor includes a plurality of photo sensors arranged in a plurality of lines. A plurality of vertical shift registers are disposed along one of the lines of photo sensors. A horizontal shift register is formed to receive charges from the vertical shift registers. An output circuit converts the charges transferred through the horizontal shift resistor into electrical signals. The driving method includes the steps of accumulating charges in the photo sensors, transferring charges accumulated in all of the photo sensors to the vertical shift registers, and shifting the transferred charges to the horizontal shift register via the vertical shift registers. The start of charge-shiftings is initiated from the charges in the order of the distances between the transferred position and the photo sensors and the horizontal shift register. The charges received from the vertical shift registers are shifted through the horizontal shift register to an output circuit where the quality of charges reaching the output is converted into an electrical signal. The CCD area image sensor includes at least one shift register circuit for producing shift pulses which perform the above-mentioned operations.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A method for driving a CCD area image sensor including a plurality of photo sensors arranged in a plurality of lines, a plurality of vertical shift registers each disposed along one line of said photo sensors, said vertical shift register having a series of plural number of shift stages, each two of said photo sensors being disposed so as to face one of said shift stages, a horizontal shift register formed to receive charges from said vertical shift registers, an output means for converting charges transferred through said horizontal shift register into electrical signals, and a transferring means for transferring charges accumulated in said photo sensors to said vertical shift registers, the method for driving said CCD area image sensor comprising the steps of:

exposing said photo sensors to an object to be sensed to accumulate charges in said photo sensors;
transferring said charges accumulated in all of said photo sensors to said vertical shift registers;
shifting said transferred charges through said vertical shift registers toward said horizontal shift register, the shift through said vertical shift registers being initiated from charges transferred to said vertical shift register at the shift stage nearest to said horizontal shift register to charges transferred to said vertical shift register at the shift stage farthest from said horizontal shift register in order of distance from said horizontal shift register;
shifting charges shifted to said horizontal shift register therethrough toward said output means;
and
converting a quantity of charges shifted to said output means to an electrical signal by said output means.

3 more elements

A CCD area image sensor comprising;

a plurality of photo sensors arranged in a plurality of lines and accumulating charges in response to incident light;
a plurality of vertical shift registers disposed in parallel with one of said lines of said photo sensors, respectively,
a transfer means for transferring charges accumulated in said photo sensors to said vertical shift registers,
a horizontal shift register disposed at one end of said vertical shift registers and having a plurality of shift electrodes;
a charge-voltage converter converting charges received from said horizontal shift register to a voltage form signal;
a first driving means for driving said vertical shift registers to shift charges transferred to said vertical shift registers to said horizontal shift register, said first driving means including means for delaying successively input pulses applied thereto to produce a plurality of successively delayed pulses and means for applying said successively delayed pulses to said shift electrodes of said vertical shift registers;
and
a second driving means for driving said horizontal shift register to shift charges in said horizontal shift register to said charge-voltage converter.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 07/014,993Filed 17 Feb 1987
Priority: JP 61-3439518 Feb 1986
Granted: 14 Feb 1989
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

H10F 39/153
Charge-coupled device [CCD] image sensors: two-dimensional or three-dimensional array CCD image sensors
H04N 25/73
Charge-coupled device [CCD] sensors; Charge-transfer registers specially adapted for CCD sensors: using interline transfer [IT]
H04N 25/745
Charge-coupled device [CCD] sensors; Charge-transfer registers specially adapted for CCD sensors: circuitry for generating timing or clock signals
H10F
Solar cells and light sensors