Compact in-pixel high dynamic range imaging

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8957359-B2
Application number	US-201213651092-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 12, 2012
Priority date	Oct 12, 2012
Publication date	Feb 17, 2015
Grant date	Feb 17, 2015

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention describe providing a compact solution to provide high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or simply HDR) for an imaging pixel by utilizing a control node for resetting a floating diffusion node to a reference voltage value and for selectively transferring an image charge from a photosensitive element to a readout node. Embodiments of the invention further describe control node to have to a plurality of different capacitance regions to selectively increase the overall capacitance of the floating diffusion node. This variable capacitance of the floating diffusion node increases the dynamic range of the imaging pixel, thereby providing HDR for the host imaging system, as well as increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the imaging system.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An imaging sensor pixel comprising:
a floating diffusion (FD) region;
a photosensitive element to acquire an image charge;
a reset transistor to store the image charge;
a transfer gate to selectively transfer the image charge from the photosensitive element to the FD region; and
a reset gate node coupled to the FD region to control the transfer of the image charge to a readout node, the reset gate node to reset the FD region to a reference volt…

Assignees

• Omnivision Tech Inc

Inventors

• Chen Gang
• Mao Duli
• Tai Hsin-Chih
• Rhodes Howard E

Classifications

• H04N25/59

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10F39/8037 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic