Image Sensor Binning Method for High Frame Rate and Low Data Size
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Solution Overview
Problem
As image sensor resolution increases, maintaining a high frame rate while reducing power consumption and image data size becomes challenging due to limited circuit and computational bandwidth, often resulting in artifacts like zigzag noise and false color.
Innovation Solution
A binning method for image sensors that reads pixel signals from multiple rows simultaneously, performs analog-to-digital conversion, and generates summation values for adjacent pixels, reducing data size and increasing frame rate while maintaining image quality through vertical analog summation and interpolation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If image sensor resolution is increased, then image quality is improved, but frame rate decreases and power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges signals from multiple pixels (2x2 or larger blocks) into single output signals through analog summation in the pixel array. This binning approach combines multiple pixel outputs before readout, reducing the total data volume by a factor of 4 or more while maintaining acceptable image quality through spatial integration, thereby enabling high frame rates even at high resolutions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the pixel array into multiple independently controllable blocks that can be read out simultaneously through different column lines. This segmentation allows parallel readout of multiple rows, effectively multiplying the frame rate by the number of simultaneously readout rows while maintaining full resolution coverage across the sensor array.
2Manufacturing precision
If image sensor resolution is increased, then image quality is improved, but data size increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges signals from multiple pixels into single binning output signals through analog summation, reducing the data volume by a factor of 4 or more (e.g., combining 2x2 pixel blocks). This significant data reduction eases bandwidth requirements and storage demands while preserving essential image information through spatial integration of multiple pixel signals.
3Manufacturing precision
If computational bandwidth is increased to avoid artifacts, then image quality is maintained, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs signal merging and summation in advance within the pixel array itself through analog circuitry, before the signals reach external processing circuits. This preliminary binning action reduces the computational burden on external processors by a factor of 4 or more, as the majority of signal integration is completed in-sensor, thereby reducing device complexity and power consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
The binning method of an image sensor includes reading out a plurality of pixel signals from at least two rows of each of a plurality of areas of a pixel array at a time, each of the plurality of areas including a plurality of pixels arranged in a 2n×2n matrix, where n is an integer equal to or greater than 2; generating first image data by performing analog-to-digital conversion on the plurality of pixel signals; generating, based on the first image data, a first summation value of each of a plurality of binning areas based on two pixel values corresponding to a same color in each of the plurality of binning areas, the plurality of binning areas corresponding to the plurality of areas of the pixel array; and generating a second summation value of each of two binning areas based on two first summation values corresponding to a same color in the two binning areas, the two binning areas being adjacent to each other in a column direction among the plurality of binning areas.