Line sensor spatially compressing charge distribution
AssigneeHamamatsu Photonics K.K.
InventorKazuhisa Myaguchi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The line sensor 100 comprises an image pick-up part 10, charge integrator 20 and charge output part 30. The image pick-up part comprises an N pixel parts 111 to 11N arranged in one direction, an nth pixel part 11n comprises an M photosensitive regions 121,n to 12M,n that generate and accumulate charge in response to an incident energy beam. The charge integrator 20 comprises an N integrators 211 to 21N, and the charge output part 30 comprises an N output parts 311 to 31N. The charges generated and accumulated by each of the M photosensitive regions 121,n to 12M,n that the nth pixel part 11n comprises are accumulated and integrated by the nth integrator 21n and output to the nth output part 31n in a batch.
Claims4
A line sensor in which an N (N is an integer of 2 or more) pixel parts are arranged in one direction, characterized in that it comprises:
- an image pick-up part, comprising said N pixel parts each comprising an M photosensitive regions (M is an integer of 2 or more) in that charge is generated and accumulated in response to an incident energy beam, which outputs the charges generated and accumulated by said M photosensitive regions that each said N pixel parts comprise;
- a charge integrator, comprising an N integrators, to which the charges generated and accumulated in said M photosensitive regions that an nth (n is any integer of 1 or more and no more than N) pixel part of said image pick-up part comprises are input, and which integrates and accumulates the input charges in an nth integrator, and outputs all of the charges integrated and accumulated in each said N integrators in a batch;
- and
- a charge output part, comprising an N output parts, to which the charges output from said nth integrator of said charge integrator are input, and which accumulates the input charges in an nth output part, and outputs the charges accumulated in each said N output parts in sequence.
A line sensor, characterized in that it comprises an image pick-up part formed by a plurality of vertical shift registers arranged in the horizontal direction,
- a charge output part configured from horizontal shift registers that extend in the direction of arrangement of the end of said vertical shift registers, and
- a charge integrator, positioned between said image pick-up part and said charge output part, which integrates all of the charges output from the respective said vertical shift registers in accumulation regions corresponding to each said vertical shift registers, wherein the respective said accumulation regions simultaneously transfer the accumulated charges to said horizontal shift registers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.