Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080239466 | Device and Method for the Demodulation Electromagnetic Wave Fields - A new pixel in semiconductor technology comprises a photo-sensitive detection region ( | 10-02-2008 |
20080247033 | Device and Method for the Demodulation of Modulated Electric Signals - A demodulation device ( | 10-09-2008 |
20090020687 | Reference Pixel Array with Varying Sensitivities for TOF Sensor - The sensitivity of a reference pixel array RPA to the reference modulated light MLR is varied for different reference pixels RP of the reference pixel array RPA. In one embodiment the different sensitivities of the reference pixels RP in the RPA is achieved by designing the pixels to have different light sensitivities with respect to each other. In another embodiment, the different sensitivities are achieved by changing optical coupling between the separate reference pixels RP of the reference pixel array RPA to the reference modulated light MLR such as by changing how the different reference pixels RP couple to the aperture LGA of the light guide LG. | 01-22-2009 |
20090021617 | On-chip time-based digital conversion of pixel outputs - An integrated sensor chip comprises at least one pixel. The at least one pixel comprises: one or several integration regions for receiving and storing photogenerated charges; a modulation region that moves the photogenerated charges to be stored in the at least two integration regions; and sense nodes, in which each of the sense nodes is associated with one of the integration regions, into which the photogenerated charges are moved from the integration regions during a readout stage. The chip comprises: at least one function generator for generating a time-varying function that is applied to the integration regions during the readout cycle to move the photogenerated changes to the sense nodes; a counter generates a count during the generation of the time-varying function; and registers, in which each of the registers is associated with one of the sense nodes during read out, for storing digital values; wherein the registers store the count in response to the associated sense node receiving photogenerated charges from the associated integration regions. | 01-22-2009 |
20090190007 | Adaptive Neighborhood Filtering (ANF) System and Method for 3D Time of Flight Cameras - A method for filtering distance information from a 3D-measurement camera system comprises comparing amplitude and/or distance information for pixels to adjacent pixels and averaging distance information for the pixels with the adjacent pixels when amplitude and/or distance information for the pixels is within a range of the amplitudes and/or distances for the adjacent pixels. In addition to that the range of distances may or may not be defined as a function depending on the amplitudes. | 07-30-2009 |
20100053405 | Demodulation Pixel with Daisy Chain Charge Storage Sites and Method of Operation Therefor - A demodulation pixel architecture allows for demodulating an incoming modulated electromagnetic wave, normally visible or infrared light. It is based on a charge coupled device (CCD) line connected to a drift field structure. The drift field is exposed to the incoming light. It collects the generated charge and forces it to move to the pick-up point. At this pick-up point, the CCD element samples the charge for a given time and then shifts the charge packets further on in the daisy chain. After a certain amount of shifts, the multiple charge packets are stored in so-called integration gates, in a preferred embodiment. The number of integration gates gives the number of simultaneously available taps. When the cycle is repeated several times, the charge is accumulated in the integration gates and thus the signal-to-noise ratio increases. The architecture is flexible in the number of taps. A dump node can be attached to the CCD line for dumping charge with the same speed as the samples are taken. Different implementations are described herein, which allow for smaller design or faster speed. The pixel structure can be exploited for e.g. 3D time-of-flight imaging. Both heterodyne and homodyne measurements are possible. Due to the highly-efficient charge transport enabled by static drift fields in the photo-sensitive region and small-sized gates in the CCD chain, high frequency bandwidth from just a few Hertz (Hz) up to greater GHz is supported. Thus, the pixel allows for highly-accurate optical distance measurements. Another possible application of this pixel architecture is fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM), where short laser pulses for triggering the fluorescence have to be suppressed. | 03-04-2010 |
20110089471 | Demodulation Pixel Incorporating Majority Carrier Current, Buried Channel and High-Low Junction - A demodulation pixel improves the charge transport speed and sensitivity by exploiting two effects of charge transport in silicon in order to achieve the before-mentioned optimization. The first one is a transport method based on the CCD gate principle. However, this is not limited to CCD technology, but can be realized also in CMOS technology. The charge transport in a surface or even a buried channel close to the surface is highly efficient in terms of speed, sensitivity and low trapping noise. In addition, by activating a majority carrier current flowing through the substrate, another drift field is generated below the depleted CCD channel. This drift field is located deeply in the substrate, acting as an efficient separator for deeply photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Thus, another large amount of minority carriers is transported to the diffusion nodes at high speed and detected. | 04-21-2011 |
20110164132 | Demodulation Sensor with Separate Pixel and Storage Arrays - A demodulation image sensor, such as used in time of flight (TOF) cameras, extracts all storage- and post-processing-related steps from the pixels to another array of storage and processing elements (proxels) on the chip. The pixel array has the task of photo-detection, first processing and intermediate storage, while the array of storage and processing elements provides further processing and enhanced storage capabilities for each pixel individually. The architecture can be used to address problems due to the down-scaling of the pixel size. Typically, either the photo-sensitivity or the signal storage capacitance suffers significantly. Both a lower sensitivity and smaller storage capacitances have negative influence on the image quality. The disclosed architecture allows for keeping the storage capacitance unaffected by the pixel down-scaling. In addition to that, it provides a high degree of flexibility in integrating more intelligence into the image sensor design already on the level of the pixel array. In particular, if applied to demodulation pixels, the flexibility of the architecture allows for integrating on sensor-level concepts for multi-tap sampling, mismatch compensation, background suppression and so on, without any requirement to adjust the particular demodulation pixel architecture. | 07-07-2011 |
20110299059 | Multi-Level Digital Modulation for Time of Flight Method and System - The modulation scheme disclosed in this invention report allows for utilizing multiple 3D time-of-flight cameras at the same time by exploiting the inherent pseudo noise properties of the optical modulation signals. Compared to recent systems based on pure pseudo noise modulation signals, the stochastic measurement error in a single-camera environment is significantly reduced. The basic concept relies on the generation of a three level optical modulation signal that includes two pseudo noise sequences. | 12-08-2011 |
20120033045 | Multi-Path Compensation Using Multiple Modulation Frequencies in Time of Flight Sensor - A method to compensate for multi-path in time-of-flight (TOF) three dimensional (3D) cameras applies different modulation frequencies in order to calculate/estimate the error vector. Multi-path in 3D TOF cameras might be caused by one of the two following sources: stray light artifacts in the TOF camera systems and multiple reflections in the scene. The proposed method compensates for the errors caused by both sources by implementing multiple modulation frequencies. | 02-09-2012 |
20120098964 | System and Method for Multi TOF Camera Operation Using Phase Hopping - A modulation technique for 3D time-of-flight (TOF) cameras allows the operation of fully autonomous operated 3D TOF cameras. The method subdivides the exposure time into several sub-exposure intervals, for which the signal control unit adds a preferably pseudo-random common phase delay to the illumination and the sensor. | 04-26-2012 |
20130070132 | Time of Flight Sensor with Subframe Compression and Method - A demodulation image sensor, such as used in time of flight (TOF) cameras, extracts all storage- and post-processing-related steps from the pixels to another array of storage and processing elements (proxels) on the chip. The pixel array has the task of photo-detection, first processing and intermediate storage to create subframes, while the array of storage and processing elements provides accumulation into frames. Particularly, sampled values of several subframes are summed in a compressed manner. Possible compression is to use exponential function. | 03-21-2013 |
20130140433 | Sensor Pixel Array and Separated Array of Storage and Accumulation with Parallel Acquisition and Readout - A demodulation image sensor, such as used in time of flight (TOF) cameras, performs the acquisition and readout of the pixels in parallel. This is used to avoid motion artifacts due to samplings performed separated in time. | 06-06-2013 |
20130248938 | PN-Structured Gate Demodulation Pixel - A novel photo-sensitive element for electronic imaging purposes and, in this context, is particularly suited for time-of-flight 3D imaging sensor pixels. The element enables charge-domain photo-detection and processing based on a single gate architecture. Certain regions for n and p-doping implants of the gates are defined. This kind of single gate architecture enables low noise photon detection and high-speed charge transport methods at the same time. A strong benefit compared to known pixel structures is that no special processing steps are required such as overlapping gate structures or very high-ohmic poly-silicon deposition. In this sense, the element relaxes the processing methods so that this device may be integrated by the use of standard CMOS technology for example. Regarding time-of-flight pixel technology, a major challenge is the generation of lateral electric fields. The element allows the generation of fringing fields and large lateral electric fields. | 09-26-2013 |