Patent ID: 6884982

Claim:
An electronic imager comprising: a detector array comprising a plurality of radiation sensitive elements, each representing a pixel and generating a signal in response to incident energy; a plurality of processing circuits, each responsive to said signal from a respective radiation sensitive element for providing a first output signal and to a signal present indicator from at least one other processing circuit associated with an adjacent radiation sensitive element for determining whether signal coupling has occurred, wherein each processing circuit is associated with a sub-pixel to which said first signal is coupled in response to a determination that signal coupling has not occurred; and a shared channel circuit coupled to at least two processing circuits for receiving said first output signal from the at least two processing circuits in response to a determination that signal coupling has occurred, wherein said shared channel circuit comprises a comparator for comparing the amplitude of said received signals and is operative to generate a second output signal in response to said received signals and to direct the second output signal to a counter associated with a sub-pixel selected in response to said comparison, wherein a plurality of sub-pixels are associated with a pixel.