Sensing module for accelerating signal readout from image sensors
AssigneeSyscan, Inc.
InventorDongtai Liu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention has been made in consideration of accommodating a higher sensor clock signal to increase the pixel readout rate from a regular image sensor and has particular applications to generating high-resolution and high-speed images from scanning objects. The sensing module in the present invention uses a number of readout passages in parallel to produce several segmented outputs from the image sensor and subsequently combine the outputs to produce an interleaved scanning signal under a sequence of control signals derived from a sensor clock signal.
Claims14
A method for accelerating signal readout from an image sensor including N photodetectors producing N charging signals when exposed to a scene, the method comprising:
- dividing the N photodetectors into M groups so that each of the M groups includes K charging signals, wherein K=N/M;
- reading out in parallel one of the K charging signals in each of the M groups at a time;
- continuing to read out a next one of the K charging signals in each of the M groups at a time till all of the K charging signals in each of the M groups are readout;
- and
- reordering the readout N charging signals in a predefined order.
A method for accelerating signal readout from an image sensor including N photodetectors producing N charging signals when exposed to a scene, the method comprising:
- reading out K of the N charging signals at a time, wherein K=N/M and M is a number of groups dividing the N charging signals and wherein the adjacent two of the K charging signals do not correspond to adjacent two of the N charging signals;
- continuing to read out another set of K signals from the N charging signals till all of the N charging signals are readout;
- and
- reordering the readout N charging signals in a predefined order.
A sensing module for accelerating signal readout from an image sensor, the sensing module comprising:
- an array of N photodetectors producing N scanning signals when exposed to a scanning object;
- a timing circuit, in response to a clock signal having a clock cycle T, producing M control signals, wherein the M control signals are respectively delayed by the clock cycle T;
- M readout passages, coupled to the array of N photodetectors and receiving the N scanning signals therefrom, each of the M readout passages respectively and independently controlled by one of the M control signals and reading out one of the N scanning signals from the array of N photodetectors so that each time M of the N scanning signals are readout;
- a multiplexer having M inputs respectively receiving the M scanning signals and the multiplexer, in response to the M control signals, successively sampling the N scanning signals to subsequently produce N interleaved scanning signals.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.