395 results about "Electronic shutter" patented technology

The invention features an image reader and a corresponding method for capturing a sharp distortion free image of a target, such as a one or two-dimensional bar code. In one embodiment, the image reader comprises a two-dimensional CMOS based image sensor array, a timing module, an illumination module, and a control module. The time during which the target is illuminated is referred to as the illumination period. The capture of the image by the image sensor array is driven by the timing module that, in one embodiment, is able to simultaneously expose substantially all of the pixels in the array. The time during which the pixels are collectively activated to photo-convert incident light into charge defines the exposure period for the sensor array. In one embodiment, at least a portion of the exposure period occurs during the illumination period.

Embodiments of the present invention provide pixel cells with increased storage capacity, which are capable of anti-blooming operations. In an exemplary embodiment a pixel cell has an electronic shutter that transfers charge generated by a photo-conversion device to a storage node before further transferring the charge to the pixel cell's floating diffusion node. Each pixel cell also includes an anti-blooming transistor for directing excess charge out of each respective pixel cell, thus preventing blooming. Additionally, two or more pixel cells of an array may share a floating diffusion node and reset and readout circuitry.

A storage pixel sensor disposed on a semiconductor substrate comprises a capacitive storage element having a first terminal connected to a fixed potential and a second terminal. A photodiode has an anode connected to a first potential and a cathode. A semiconductor reset switch has a first terminal connected to the cathode and a second terminal connected to a reset potential. A semiconductor transfer switch has a first terminal connected to the cathode and a second terminal connected to the second terminal of the capacitive storage element. A semiconductor amplifier has an input connected to the capacitive storage element and an output. The semiconductor reset switch and the semiconductor transfer switch each have a control element connected to a control circuit for selectively activating the semiconductor reset switch and the semiconductor transfer switch. A light shield is disposed over portions of the semiconductor substrate comprising a circuit node including the second terminal of the semiconductor transfer switch, the second terminal of the capacitive storage element and the input of the semiconductor amplifier and to prevent substantially all photons from entering the circuit node. Structures are present for preventing substantially all minority carriers generated in the semiconductor substrate from entering the circuit node. A plurality of storage pixel sensors are disposed in an array.

The present invention relates to a method for driving a solid-state image pickup device and a camera provided with the driving function. In the method for driving the solid-state image pickup device and the camera according to the present invention, the frame rate of the image pickup device is varied according to the frequency of illumination or the brightness. Alternatively, the frame rate of the image pickup device is varied and an electronic shutter is driven at the same time according to the brightness. Consequently, it is possible to suppress occurrence of flicker and give a liberal brightness condition under which an image can be picked up.

A solid-state imaging apparatus, controlling a potential on a semiconductor substrate for an electronic shutter operation, includes: a first semiconductor region of the first conductivity type for forming a photoelectric conversion region; a second semiconductor region of the first conductivity type, formed separately from the photoelectric conversion region, for accumulating carriers; a third semiconductor region of a second conductivity type arranged under the second semiconductor region, for operating as a potential barrier; a fourth semiconductor region of the second conductivity type extending between the first semiconductor region and the semiconductor substrate, and between the third semiconductor region and the semiconductor substrate; and a first voltage supply portion for supplying a voltage to the third semiconductor region; wherein the first voltage supply portion includes a fifth semiconductor region of the second conductivity type arranged in the pixel region, and a first electrode connected to the fifth semiconductor region.

The invention is based on a method for controlling a flashlight in connection with a digital image sensor without a mechanical shutter, wherein the exposure of the image sensor is performed in sub-areas, such as pixel rows or columns, or in another order, by using a rolling electronic shutter or the like. Thus, the exposure of said sub-areas of the image sensor takes place at least partly at different times. According to the invention, during the time of exposure of one image, i.e. substantially all the sub-areas of the image sensor, several discrete, successive flashes of the flashlight are used to achieve even exposure of the image area, which the flashes are timed in such a way that each single flash is triggered at a point of time which is common to the integration or exposure time of as many successive sub-areas of the image sensor as possible. According to the invention, the successive light flashes are also timed in such a way that one and only one flash of the flashlight occurs during the integration or exposure time of each single sub-area. By the present invention, the significant advantage is attained that the invention minimizes the number of light flashes required for one image while it also secures that each sub-area of the sensor to be exposed at a different time is illuminated as evenly as possible.

A multi-step exposed image acquisition method by an electronic shutter and a photography apparatus using the same are provided. The photography apparatus includes a controller configured to divide an image sensor into a plurality of areas and separately control an exposure time with respect to the plurality of areas of the image sensor and a display configured to display an image on which the exposure times for the areas has been controlled. Accordingly, a multi-step exposed image can be acquired from an image having varying brightness.

An electronic shutter switching transistor for a CMOS electronic is formed in a semiconductor substrate of a first conductivity type. The transistor comprises a pair of spaced apart doped regions of a second conductivity type opposite the first conductivity type disposed in the semiconductor substrate forming source/drain regions. A gate is disposed above and insulated from the semiconductor substrate and is self aligned with the pair of spaced apart doped regions. A well of the second conductivity type laterally surrounds the pair of spaced apart doped regions and extends deeper into the substrate than the doped regions. A buried layer of the second conductivity type underlies and is in contact with the well.

An image capture apparatus includes an image capture unit having a plurality of exposure adjustment functions including an electronic shutter function for changing an exposure time within a frame period and configured to capture an image of a subject to obtain image data, and an image-capture control unit configured to allow the image capture unit to execute an image capture operation of capturing a plurality of frames of image data having continuity in time at a fixed frame rate and configured to perform exposure adjustment control in accordance with a subject brightness level obtained during the execution of the image capture operation, the exposure adjustment control being performed using preferentially an exposure adjustment function other than the electronic shutter function.

A storage pixel sensor disposed on a semiconductor substrate comprises a MOS capacitor storage element having a diffusion terminal and a gate terminal. A speed node is connected to the diffusion terminal and biased at either a first control potential or a second control potential, the first potential selected to keep the MOS capacitor in a state of inversion, the second potential selected to keep the MOS capacitor in a state of depletion. A photodiode has an anode connected to a reference potential and a cathode. A semiconductor reset switch has a first terminal connected to the cathode and a second terminal connected to a reset reference potential. A semiconductor transfer switch has a first terminal connected to the cathode and a second terminal connected to the gate terminal of the capacitive storage element. A semiconductor amplifier has an input connected to the gate terminal of the capacitive storage element and an output. The semiconductor reset switch and the semiconductor transfer switch each have a control element connected to a control circuit for selectively activating the semiconductor reset switch and the semiconductor transfer switch. A light shield is disposed over a portion of the semiconductor substrate including the second terminal of the semiconductor transfer switch to prevent substantially all photons from entering the portion of the semiconductor substrate. Structures are present for preventing substantially all minority carriers generated in the semiconductor substrate from entering the portion of the semiconductor substrate. A plurality of storage pixel sensors are disposed in an array.

This development is about the camera control method for a vehicle license plate recognition system. In detail, it is about the applying variable shutter speed and gain level per image frames that are captured through a CCTV camera of vehicle license plate recognition system. The entire control is done through 3 steps. The first step is to build up a lookup table of electronic shutter speed and gain level to generate images of various brightness levels and archive the created lookup table on to a memory of a camera. The second step is to calculate the average value of image brightness and write the multiple parameters of electronic shutter speed and gain level that match with the calculated average brightness value in the lookup table to a camera control register. The third step is to output series of images of various brightness that are captured under various shutter speeds and gain levels by the control from the camera register. This development is to get series of images with various brightness instantly by adjusting shutter speed and gain level of each frame to avoid recognition failure due to inadequate (too bright or too dark in recognizing numbers in a plate) image frame in harsh conditions such as strong sun lights or fluctuating brightness, which may confuse camera in controlling shutter speed and gain level for getting proper images to recognize.

A pixel sensor cell of improved dynamic range and a design structure including the pixel sensor cell embodied in a machine readable medium are provided. The pixel cell comprises a coupling transistor that couples a capacitor device to a photosensing region (e.g., photodiode) of the pixel cell, the photodiode being coupled to a transfer gate and one terminal of the coupling transistor. In operation, the additional capacitance is coupled to the pixel cell photodiode when the voltage on the photodiode is drawn down to the substrate potential. Thus, the added capacitance is only connected to the imager cell when the cell is nearing its charge capacity. Otherwise, the cell has a low capacitance and low leakage. In an additional embodiment, a terminal of the capacitor is coupled to a “pulsed” supply voltage signal that enables substantially full depletion of stored charge from the capacitor to the photosensing region during a read out operation of the pixel sensor cell. In various embodiments, the locations of the added capacitance and photodiode may be interchanged with respect to the coupling transistor. In addition, the added capacitor of the pixel sensor cell allows for a global shutter operation.

An image sensor formed of an array of pixels, each pixel including a photodiode coupled between a first reference voltage and a first switch, the first switch being operable to connect the photodiode to a first node; a capacitor arranged to store a charge accumulated by the photodiode, the capacitor being coupled between a second reference voltage and a second node; a second switch coupled between the first and second nodes, the second switch being operable to connect the capacitor to the first node; and read circuitry coupled for reading the voltage at the second node.

A first ranging apparatus includes a light emitter for emitting a modulated light which is intensity-modulated, a light detector for detecting a reflected light from an object that is irradiated with the modulated light, a distance calculator for calculating the distance up to the object based on the phase difference between the modulated light and the reflected light, and a gate controller. The gate controller outputs gate pulses to control a light emission controller to intermittently emit the modulated light to the object and also control an electrooptical shutter or an electronic shutter of an image capturing device to intermittently detect the reflected light from the object based on the intermittent emission of the modulated light.

An apparatus and method for reducing a shutter lag in a device with a digital camera function, in which an electronic shutter can be driven in a state of a half shutter or a full shutter, and a controller controls execution of a sub-sampling preview mode if the camera function is driven, controls to fix white balance and exposure and automatically adjust a focus upon detecting an input of the half shutter during the execution of the sub-sampling preview mode, switches to a full-pixel preview mode after completion of the adjustment, and performs image capturing upon detecting an input of the full shutter.

An image pickup device having a photoelectric conversion unit having a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements arranged in a matrix pattern for converting exposed light into electric charges and accumulating the same and an electronic shutter function for controlling the exposure time for each frame including: a first reader for reading out electric charges exposed during a standard exposure time from respective pixels including the photoelectric conversion elements in the exposed area of the photoelectric conversion unit in a destructive read-out method; a second reader for reading out electric charges exposed during a short exposure time, which is an exposure time shorter than the standard exposure time, from the respective pixels including the photoelectric conversion elements during the same exposure period as the first reader in a nondestructive read-out method; and a saturation predictor for predicting whether or not the amounts of accumulated electric charges in the respective pixels being exposed during the standard exposure time are saturated on the basis of a non-standard exposure pixel data including the electric charges being exposed during the short exposure time, which are read out by the second reader.

The invention provides a camera device and a flickering detecting method for the camera device. Under a condition that the frame rate and the frequency of the flickering light source are synchronous, high-precision flickering detection can be realized. A camera element having an electronic shutter function is enabled to take shooting actions in a predetermined period. Whether flickering element is contained in light of a shot object or not is detected according to camera output obtained the camera outputs obtained in different integral time and in same integral time at different time points.

A multi-step exposure method using an electronic shutter and a photography apparatus using the same are provided. The photography apparatus includes an image sensor, and a control unit which divides an area of the image into a first area and a second area using brightness information of the acquired image, and controls so that a first row group and a second row group of the second area have different exposure times. As a result, an image with a wider dynamic range is provided.