Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Imaging system with shot-noise-matched and floating-point ramp analog-to-digital converters
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Application No.: US16667338Application Date: 2019-10-29
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Publication No.: US11140350B2Publication Date: 2021-10-05
- Inventor: Jeffery Beck
- Applicant: SEMICONDUCTOR COMPONENTS INDUSTRIES, LLC
- Applicant Address: US AZ Phoenix
- Assignee: SEMICONDUCTOR COMPONENTS INDUSTRIES, LLC
- Current Assignee: SEMICONDUCTOR COMPONENTS INDUSTRIES, LLC
- Current Assignee Address: US AZ Phoenix
- Agency: Treyz Law Group, P.C.
- Agent Jason Tsai
- Main IPC: H04N5/335
- IPC: H04N5/335 ; H04N5/378 ; H03M1/56 ; H03M1/46 ; H03M1/12 ; H03M1/14

Abstract:
An image sensor may include an array of image sensor pixels that are read out using analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The ADC may be shot-noise-matched to reduce the number of decision cycles required. A ramp with limited resolution spanning only a small portion of the full scale voltage range may be used. For small analog input voltages, this limited ramp range is sufficient. For large analog input voltages, less resolution is needed due to the increasing shot noise in the photo signal. The larger input voltages may be successively divided by a selected attenuation factor until the analog input signal is within the range of the reduced ramp. The ADC keeps track of the number of divisions being performed to determine an exponent value for a floating-point output value and then convert the residual signal with the smaller ramp to determine a mantissa value for the floating-point output value.
Public/Granted literature
- US20210058579A1 IMAGING SYSTEM WITH SHOT-NOISE-MATCHED AND FLOATING-POINT RAMP ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTERS Public/Granted day:2021-02-25
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