Invention Grant
US08928792B1 CMOS image sensor with global shutter, rolling shutter, and a variable conversion gain, having pixels employing several BCMD transistors coupled to a single photodiode and dual gate BCMD transistors for charge storage and sensing
有权
具有全局快门,滚动快门和可变转换增益的CMOS图像传感器,具有使用耦合到单个光电二极管的多个BCMD晶体管的像素和用于电荷存储和感测的双栅极BCMD晶体管
- Patent Title: CMOS image sensor with global shutter, rolling shutter, and a variable conversion gain, having pixels employing several BCMD transistors coupled to a single photodiode and dual gate BCMD transistors for charge storage and sensing
- Patent Title (中): 具有全局快门,滚动快门和可变转换增益的CMOS图像传感器,具有使用耦合到单个光电二极管的多个BCMD晶体管的像素和用于电荷存储和感测的双栅极BCMD晶体管
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Application No.: US13153369Application Date: 2011-06-03
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Publication No.: US08928792B1Publication Date: 2015-01-06
- Inventor: Jaroslav Hynecek , Gennadiy Agranov , Xiangli Li , Hirofumi Komori , Xia Zhao , Chung Chun Wan
- Applicant: Jaroslav Hynecek , Gennadiy Agranov , Xiangli Li , Hirofumi Komori , Xia Zhao , Chung Chun Wan
- Applicant Address: KY George Town
- Assignee: Aptina Imaging Corporation
- Current Assignee: Aptina Imaging Corporation
- Current Assignee Address: KY George Town
- Main IPC: H04N5/335
- IPC: H04N5/335 ; H04N5/359 ; H04N5/3745

Abstract:
The invention describes a solid-state CMOS image sensor array and discloses image sensor array pixels with global and rolling shutter capabilities that utilize multiple BCMD transistors for a single photodiode, for charge storage and sensing. Thus, the valuable pixel area saved by employing the BCMD transistor for charge storage and sensing is used by placing several BCMD transistors coupled to one photodiode. This increases the Dynamic Range (DR) of the sensor, since the same photodiode can integrate charge for different integration times, both long and short. This allows sensing of two different image signals from a single pixel without saturation, a low level signal with long integration time followed by a high level signal with short integration time. The signal processing circuits located at the periphery of the array can then process these signals into a single Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) output. Further disclosed is an image sensor array with pixels that use BCMD transistors for charge storage and sensing having multiple concentric gates, which allows changing the conversion gain of the BCMD transistors by applying various biases to the gates. Variable conversion gain is a useful feature when building WDR sensors since low conversion gain and high well capacity allows detection of high level signals and the same structure can be used to detect, at the same time, low level signals with high conversion gain and thus low noise.
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