Imaging sensor and method for reading out image information

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10742916-B2
Application number	US-201716094165-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 6, 2017
Priority date	Apr 19, 2016
Publication date	Aug 11, 2020
Grant date	Aug 11, 2020

Abstract

An imaging sensor is disclosed, comprising: a set of at least two charge-coupled device, CCD, sub-arrays, wherein each sub-array comprises pixels arranged in columns and rows, and each pixel being arranged to accumulate an electric charge proportional to an intensity of light incident on the pixel; a time delay and integration, TDI, clocking circuitry for controlling and timing transfer of accumulated electric charges between rows of pixels in a column direction in order to integrate the accumulated electric charges in each column of pixels; wherein each CCD sub-array further comprises a readout row for converting the integrated electric charge of each column of pixels into voltage or current, wherein the readout row comprises transistors enabling readout of the signal by the readout block; and a readout block which is arranged to receive input from selected readout rows and convert the input into digital domain or convert the input to a combined representation of pixel values based on the set of CCD sub-arrays.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An imaging sensor, comprising:
a set of at least two charge-coupled device (CCD) sub-arrays, wherein each sub-array comprises pixels arranged in columns and rows, and each pixel being arranged to accumulate an electric charge proportional to an intensity of light incident on the pixel, wherein the at least two CCD sub-arrays are configured to detect a same wavelength band, and wherein the at least two CCD sub-arrays are configured to have at least one of a different number of rows, a different pixel pitch, or different pixel types with different full well capacitance;
a time delay and integration (TDI) clocking circuitry for controlling and timing transfer of accumulated electric charges between rows of pixels in a column direction in order to integrate the accumulated electric charges in each column of pixels;
wherein each CCD sub-array further comprises a readout row for converting the integrated electric charge of each column of pixels into voltage or current, wherein the readout row comprises transistors enabling readout of the signal by the readout block; and
a readout block which is arranged to receive input from selected readout rows and convert the input into digital domain or convert the input to a combined representation of pixel values based on the set of the at least two CCD sub-arrays.

2. The imaging sensor according to claim 1 , wherein each CCD sub-array is covered by an integrated filter (F) for selecting a predetermined part of the wavelengths irradiated to the pixels in the CCD sub-array.

3. The imaging sensor according to claim 1 , wherein the CCD sub-arrays in the set have equal number of rows.

4. The imaging sensor according to claim 1 , wherein a plurality of CCD sub-arrays in the set of the at least two CCD sub-arrays are associated with identical filters.

5. The imaging sensor according to claim 1 , wherein the readout rows are connected to the same readout block and wherein input from the readout rows to the readout block is time-interleaved.

6. The imaging sensor according to claim 1 , wherein the readout rows may be arranged to adjust parameters depending on a selected CCD sub-array.

7. The imaging sensor according to claim 1 , wherein the at least two CCD sub-arrays are configured for bidirectional readout.

8. A camera comprising the imaging sensor according to claim 1 .

9. A method for reading out image information, said method comprising:
detecting an intensity of light incident on respective pixels of an imaging sensor, wherein the pixels are arranged in columns and rows in at least two sub-arrays and wherein at least two sub-arrays are configured to detect the same wavelength band and wherein the at least two sub-arrays are configured to have at least one of a different number of rows, a different pixel pitch, or different pixel types with different full well capacitance;
binning information of detected light intensities from a plurality of pixels in the sub-array to a common light intensity for the plurality of pixels;
selecting at least one sub-array for readout of an image;
reading out binned information from pixels in the at least one sub-array as input to a shared readout block; and
converting the input into digital domain or to a combined representation of pixel values for a set of more than one sub-array.

Assignees

• Imec Vzw

Inventors

• Borremans Jonathan
• Tack Nicolaas
• Rosmeulen Maarten
• Goetschalckx Paul
• De Moor Piet

Classifications

• H04N25/711 Primary

  Time delay and integration [TDI] registers; TDI shift registers · CPC title

• H04N25/46

  by combining or binning pixels · CPC title

• H04N25/75

  Circuitry for providing, modifying or processing image signals from the pixel array · CPC title

• H04N5/37206 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N5/347

  Electricity · mapped topic