Patent ID: 9137466
Filing Date: 2015-09-15
Classification: H01L,H04N

Abstract:
1. An apparatus, including: a defect comparator to compare a magnitude of a signal from an image sensor array (ISA) element in a production imaging system with a magnitude of a signal from a calibration ISA element in a calibration imaging system, the calibration ISA element in the calibration imaging system being different from the ISA element in the production imaging system, the magnitude of the signal from the calibration ISA element sensed by the calibration imaging system and related to an illuminance associated with optical flare incident to an ISA from which the ISA element is selected, wherein the magnitude of the signal from the calibration ISA element corresponds to a lowest level of brightness supported by a dynamic range associated with the calibration imaging system; an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) coupled to the ISA to digitize the signal from the ISA element; a digital gain and black level adjustment module coupled to the ADC to perform a black level calibration on a digitized signal from the ISA element such that the digitized signal from the ISA element corresponds to a level of zero illuminance when no light is incident to the ISA element; a white point correction module coupled to the ADC to normalize a digitized signal from the ISA element by removing at least one of a color cast introduced by illuminating a scene using light of a particular color temperature or a color cast introduced by a colored component of the optical flare incident to the ISA; and a defect location memory coupled to the defect comparator to tag the ISA element as unusable if an illuminance corresponding to the signal from the ISA element is less than the illuminance associated with the optical flare incident to the ISA.