Patent ID: 6396539
Filing Date: 2002-05-28
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
An imaging system comprising:a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit (IC) imaging chip having an on-chip image sensor array and a plurality of on-chip MOS sensor pixel circuits to provide signals representative of light incident upon the sensor array, a programmable non-volatile memory located on the IC chip to store defective pixel location information, a controller unit located on the IC chip and coupled to access the defective pixel location information in the programmable non-volatile memory, generate a plurality of compensating pixel values from neighboring pixel values of a plurality of defective pixels, and to generate a digital image by digitizing the signals provided by the sensor array; an optical system to channel said light and create an optical image on the sensor array of the IC imaging chip; and a communication interface coupled to the controller unit wherein the communication interface implements a computer peripheral bus standard for a serial bus.