Patent ID: 8526811

Claim:
A sensor device comprising a plurality of diodes comprising monitoring photodiodes that are configured to operate in a voltage mode configuration in which each monitoring photodiode provides a voltage indicating an intensity of an incident light; a reference diode configured to produce reference voltages in response to respective reference currents supplied to the reference diode, where the reference diode and the monitoring photodiodes are configured to have a like voltage-current relationship over a range of like temperature values, such that an optical power measurement can be determined from the measured voltage indicating the intensity of the incident light and the reference voltages and reference currents, independent of temperature; a signal processing circuit having an A/D converter directly connected to the anode of each of the monitoring photodiodes and connected to the reference diode, the A/D converter measuring, over a sampling period, the voltages indicating the intensity of the incident light to each monitoring photodiode during a monitoring mode and the reference voltages of the reference diode during a reference update mode; and a shutter configured to allow the incident light to impinge upon the monitoring photodiodes during the monitoring mode and block the incident light from impinging on at least the reference diode during the reference update mode.