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US 7,002,631 B2Granted
Image pickup apparatus including compensation responsive to phased drive of charge transfer gates
AssigneeOlympus Corporation
InventorsTakayuki Kijima, Hideaki Yoshida
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In a solid state image pick-up device, charge transfer gate pulse timing for different phases is intentionally offset resulting in different exposure times for different image element subsets of the image pick-up device. The amount of added signal compensation for an individual pixel is determined as a function of one or more of: exposure time, pixel output signal level, and strobe use.
Claims19
An image pickup apparatus, comprising:
- a solid-state image pickup element including
- a plurality of image parts forming a pixel array,
- a plurality of charge transfer gates, wherein each of said image parts is coupled with a charge transfer gate, and wherein each charge transfer gate can be controlled to transfer a charge from a coupled image part to a transmission path, and
- a charge transfer gate electrode split into a plurality of phases, wherein each of said plurality of charge transfer gates is associated with one of the plurality of phases thereby defining a plurality of sets of charge transfer gates, and wherein a drive signal via a charge transfer gate electrode of a given phase controls the corresponding set of associated charge transfer gates to transfer charges from a set of image parts to the transmission path;
- driving means for supplying a plurality of pulses, each of said pulses for driving a different set of charge transfer gates corresponding to one of said plurality of phases;
- exposure control means that ends exposure by control signalling resulting in the output by said driving means of said plurality of pulses driving said different sets of charge transfer gates, wherein, for a given image part, exposure ends with its corresponding charge transfer gate acting on a received corresponding driving pulse, said plurality of pulses driving said different sets of charge transfer gates resulting in different exposure times for at least some different sets of image parts for the same exposure setting;
- means of reading output signals that reads signals output by said solid-state image pickup element;
- and
- signal compensation means that conditionally implements adding, to output signals read by said means of reading output signals, prescribed amounts of signal compensation, wherein each of said prescribed amounts of signal compensation is determined using the exposure time of the image part or parts from which the output signal is derived, and
- wherein said plurality of pulses are output with prescribed time differences.
7 more elements
An image pickup apparatus, comprising:
- a solid-state image pickup element that can be driven by splitting, into a plurality of phases, a charge transfer gate, which controls the transfer of a charge from an image part, which forms part of a pixel array, to a vertical transmission path;
- driving means capable of supplying a plurality of pulses for driving a charge transfer gate corresponding to said plurality of phases to said solid-state image pickup element;
- exposure control means that ends exposure through the output of said pulse for driving charge transfer gate when a prescribed exposure time has elapsed since the start of exposure;
- means of reading output signals that reads signals output by said solid-state image pickup element;
- and
- signal compensation means that adds, to an output signal read by said means of reading output signals, a prescribed amount of signal compensation that is determined in correspondence with said exposure time and output signal level, when a plurality of pulses for driving the charge transfer gates corresponding to said plurality of phases are output with prescribed time differences during exposure, and
- wherein said signal compensation means implements said adding said prescribed amount of signal compensation after implementing prescribed gamma conversion processing for output signal read by said means for reading output signals, and
- wherein said signal compensation means does not implement said adding said prescribed amount of signal compensation when said exposure time is a prescribed value or more.
5 more elements
An image pickup apparatus, comprising:
- a solid-state image pickup element that can be driven by splitting, into a plurality of phases, a charge transfer gate, which controls the transfer of a charge from an image part, which forms part of a pixel array, to a vertical transmission path;
- driving means capable of supplying a plurality of pulses for driving a charge transfer gate corresponding to said plurality of phases to said solid-state image pickup element;
- exposure control means that ends exposure through the output of said pulse for driving charge transfer gate when a prescribed exposure time has elapsed since the start of exposure;
- means of reading output signals that reads signals output by said solid-state image pickup element;
- and
- signal compensation means that adds, to an output signal read by said means of reading output signals, a prescribed amount of signal compensation that is determined in correspondence with said exposure time and output signal level, when a plurality of pulses for driving the charge transfer gates corresponding to said plurality of phases are output with prescribed time differences during exposure, and
- wherein said signal compensation means implements said adding said prescribed amount of signal compensation after implementing prescribed gamma conversion processing for output signal read by said means for reading output signals, and
- wherein said signal compensation means changes said prescribed amount of signal compensation in correspondence with the state of use of strobe during the exposure.
5 more elements
An image pickup apparatus, comprising:
- a solid-state image pickup element that can be driven by splitting, into a plurality of phases, a charge transfer gate, which controls the transfer of a charge from an image part, which forms part of a pixel array, to a vertical transmission path;
- driving means capable of supplying a plurality of pulses for driving a charge transfer gate corresponding to said plurality of phases to said solid-state image pickup element;
- exposure control means that ends exposure through the output of said pulse for driving charge transfer gate when a prescribed exposure time has elapsed since the start of exposure;
- means of reading output signals that reads signals output by said solid-state image pickup element;
- and
- signal compensation means that adds, to an output signal read by said means of reading output signals, a prescribed amount of signal compensation that is determined in correspondence with said exposure time and output signal level, when a plurality of pulses for driving the charge transfer gates corresponding to said plurality of phases are output with prescribed time differences during exposure, and
- wherein said signal compensation means does not implement said adding said prescribed amount of signal compensation when said exposure time is a prescribed value or more.
4 more elements
An image pickup apparatus, comprising:
- a solid-state image pickup element that can be driven by splitting, into a plurality of phases, a charge transfer gate, which controls the transfer of a charge from an image part, which forms part of a pixel array, to a vertical transmission path;
- driving means capable of supplying a plurality of pulses for driving a charge transfer gate corresponding to said plurality of phases to said solid-state image pickup element;
- exposure control means that ends exposure through the output of said pulse for driving charge transfer gate when a prescribed exposure time has elapsed since the start of exposure;
- means of reading output signals that reads signals output by said solid-state image pickup element;
- and
- signal compensation means that adds, to an output signal read by said means of reading output signals, a prescribed amount of signal compensation that is determined in correspondence with said exposure time and output signal level, when a plurality of pulses for driving the charge transfer gates corresponding to said plurality of phases are output with prescribed time differences during exposure, and
- wherein said signal compensation means changes said prescribed amount of signal compensation in correspondence with the state of use of strobe during the exposure.
4 more elements
An image pickup apparatus, comprising:
- a two dimensional image pickup element that has a photoelectric conversion part arranged two-dimensionally and a vertical transmission path that is driven by a plurality of phase drive pulses, wherein of this plurality of phase drive pulses the drive pulse for one phase is further divided into a plurality of phases and acts as a pulse for transferring a signal charge from said photoelectric conversion part to said vertical transmission path;
- exposure parameters recognition means that determines exposure parameters for said image pickup element, including exposure time and flash use status, and recognises whether or not those parameters are prescribed exposure conditions;
- and
- disalignment compensation means that adds output signal that has been converted into digital signal by said image pickup element and prescribed compensation value when said exposure parameter recognition means recognises that said image pickup element is being driven under prescribed exposure conditions.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.