Patent ID: 8009214

Claim:
An image sensor system, comprising: an array of image sensor pixels; a readout system, associated with said array of image sensor pixels, said readout system including plural readout elements, each readout element including an A/D converter producing a digital value indicative of its input, and including a connection part that selectively connects the readout system to receive outputs from said image sensor pixels, said readout system including a calibration part that connects a calibration value to said A/D converter at a first time in order to calibrate an output of said A/D converter, and a calibration latch that stores a digital calibration value produced from said A/D converter when said calibration part has connected said calibration value thereto and uses said A/D converter to sample values from said image sensor pixels at a different time from said first time, and to use said digital calibration value from said calibration latch to produce an output by combining a value from an output of said A/D converter sampling a value from an image sensor pixel, along with said read out digital calibration value; and a controller, that controls said readout system to receive outputs from different image sensor pixels at different times, and controls said calibration part to obtain calibration information each time that said readout system is used to read out a value and indicative of any image sensor pixel and use to said calibration information for said each time that said readout system is used, to compensate for said each readout, wherein said controller obtains said calibration information on only some, but not all rows, and wherein said controller selects randomly rows to be calibrated.