Patent ID: 7379106

Claim:
A CCD imager architecture comprising: a plurality of banks of photo-sensing pixels arranged in a matrix of rows and columns, the photo-sensing pixels configured to record data collectively representative of an image; a plurality of horizontal CCD (HCCD) arrays comprising information-transferring cells, each HCCD array being located adjacent a corresponding bank of photo-sensing pixels, and each information-transferring cell corresponding to a respective column of photo-sensing pixels; a controller and a clock, the controller configured to operate the clock to control transfer of the data from the photo-sensing pixels to the information-transferring cells, and from the information-transferring cells to a charge amplifier; and wherein the controller is configured to operate in a sampling mode and a non-sampling mode, and: when in the non-sampling mode, to sequentially transfer all of the data in the column of photo-sensing pixels into the corresponding information-transferring cell in the respective HCCD; and when in the sampling mode, to transfer data from only one of the photo-sensing pixels from selected ones of the columns of photo-sensing pixels into the corresponding information-transferring cell in the respective HCCD.