Patent ID: 9253396
Filing Date: 2016-02-02
CPC Classification: H04N

Claim Text:
1. An apparatus comprising: an array of pixel sensors, each pixel sensor comprising a photodetector, a charge conversion circuit, and a gate transistor, said charge conversion circuit generating a voltage signal that is a function of a charge on said photodetector, and said gate transistor coupling said voltage signal to a bit line in response to a first signal; a signal digitizing circuit connected to said bit line, said digitizing circuit converting said voltage signal to a plurality of output digital values, said output digital values having a plurality of selectable levels of quantization noise, one of said selectable levels of quantization noise being selected in response to an output control signal; and a digitizing controller that generates said output control signal based on said voltage signal, wherein said digitizing controller comprises a variable gain amplifier having a plurality of gain values that amplifies said voltage signal to generate an amplified signal that is digitized by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) having a fixed number of bits.