Patent ID: 8345117
Filing Date: 2013-01-01
Classification: G06K,H01L,H04N

Abstract:
1. A terminal comprising: an image sensing and processing circuit having a hybrid monochrome and color image sensor pixel array, the hybrid monochrome and color image sensor pixel array having a first subset of pixels and a second subset of pixels, the first subset of pixels being monochrome pixels devoid of color filter elements and a second subset of pixels being a color sensitive subset of pixels including color filter elements, the first subset of pixels having monochrome pixel positions, the second subset of pixels having color pixel positions; a lens assembly for use in focusing an image onto the image sensor pixel array; and a housing, wherein the terminal is configured so that the hybrid monochrome and color image sensor pixel array is supported within the hand held housing; a central processing unit (CPU); an image frame memory addressable by the CPU; wherein the image sensing and processing circuit is operative to output a CPU addressable frame of image data for storage into the CPU addressable image frame memory, the image sensing and processing circuit being operative to determine monochrome pixel values corresponding to a plurality of the color pixel positions of the image sensor pixel array so the CPU addressable frame of image data output by the image sensing and processing circuit for storage into the image frame memory includes a plurality of monochrome pixel values that correspond to color pixel positions of the image sensor pixel array, wherein the image sensing and processing circuit includes an N row buffer operative to simultaneously store image data corresponding to N rows of pixels of the image sensor pixel array, wherein the image frame memory is operative to simultaneously store image data corresponding to M rows of pixels of the image sensor pixel array, wherein M>N, wherein the N row buffer is not addressable by the CPU, and wherein N and M are numerical values.