Patent ID: 8013920
Filing Date: 2011-09-06
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image sensor fabricated on a surface of a substrate for sensing light impinging upon said image sensor, said image sensor comprising: an array of a plurality of pixel image sensors arranged in rows and columns upon said substrate for conversion of photons of said light impinging upon said image sensor to photoelectrons, each of said pixel image sensors comprising: a plurality of column switches, each column switch connected such that said output line of each photoelectron sensing device of each pixel image sensor is selectively connected to transfer each output signal from each pixel image sensor of a selected row; a control circuit in communication with said rows of said array of plurality of pixel image sensors and said plurality of column switches for generating reset control signals, transfer gating signals, pixel image sensor initiation signals, and column selection signal for controlling resetting, integration of photoelectrons generated from said light impinging upon said array of pixel image sensors, charge transfer of said photoelectrons from said photosensing devices to said charge storage device, and to activate said photoelectron sensing devices on each row to generate output signals from each of said pixel image sensors on a selected row for transfer; wherein said control circuit generates said reset control signals, transfer gating signals, pixel image sensor initiation signals, and column selection signals to provide a double sampling of each pixel image sensor of each selected row, a first sampling of said double sampling being a reset level of each pixel image sensor on said selected row and a second sampling of said double sampling being a signal level related to said number of photoelectrons; wherein column selections signals activate each column selection switch to serially form each first sampling from each pixel image sensor into a reset output signal for transfer and serially form each second sampling from each pixel image sensor into a photon magnitude output signal for transfer as a serial video output signal.