| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20080217712 | Apparatus and method for forming optical black pixels with uniformly low dark current - An apparatus and method for forming optical black pixels having uniformly low dark current. Optical Black opacity is increased without having to increase Ti/TiN layer thickness. A hybrid approach is utilized combining a Ti/TiN OB layer in conjunction with in-pixel metal stubs that further occlude the focal radius of each pixel's incoming light beam. Additional metal layers can be used to increase the opacity into the infrared region. | 09-11-2008 |
| 20080218609 | Cross-coupled differential Dac-based black clamp circuit - A black clamp circuit for an image sensor utilizes a differential programmable gain amplifier and a feed-back loop to adjust a black level based on comparison to a reference black level. The gain (and therefore step size and range) of the feed-back loop constant for all programmable gain amplifier gain settings. The gain of the fee-back loop is kept constant by adjusting the values of programmable capacitors in the circuit. | 09-11-2008 |
| 20080218615 | Apparatus and method for stabilizing image sensor black level - A black clamp stabilization circuit for an image sensor utilizes a mixed-signal SoC block comprising sub-blocks to dynamically and precisely adjust the black level based on comparison to a reference black level. The black level adjustments include a first level regulation using digital control of an analog signal in a feedback loop that includes a programmable gain amplifier and high-resolution A/D converter. By applying the black clamping in the analog domain, dynamic range is extended. Additional black level regulation is subsequently performed in the digital domain to differentially eliminate line noise and column noise generated within the imaging System-on-Chip. By providing information between the sub-blocks, the algorithms can converge more quickly. The technique enables multiple signal paths to separately handle individual colors and to increase imaging data throughput. | 09-11-2008 |
| 20090278962 | Method for fixed pattern noise (FPN) correction - A method for correcting column Fixed Pattern Noise (FPN) in an image sensor offers a compromise between speed and precision for calculating column FPN offsets. The present correction technique is digital, and is applied after the pixel signal voltages have been digitized by an ADC. A first Optical Black (OB) pixel is sampled and compared to a target level. An offset is stored, and an appropriate push-size is determined. Additional OB pixels are sampled and the offset is applied. The push-size is increased or decreased depending upon whether the pixel signal with the applied offset is above or below a target value. This new offset value is written to memory, and the push-size is reduced, and the process is repeated until the last OB pixel has been processed. The resulting offset is applied to the signal pixels in a column. The primary advantage of this approach is that within a single frame, a good estimate of the column offset is made which is not as affected by outlier pixels (such as “hot” or “flashing” pixels). | 11-12-2009 |
| 20090278963 | Apparatus and method for column fixed pattern noise (FPN) correction - An apparatus and method for fixed pattern noise (FPN) correction in an image sensor utilizes at least one row of test pixels. An external voltage is applied to each pixel circuit in the at least one row. Thus, the output of the test pixels does not depend on the photo or dark current signals. The applied voltage is used to determine a column offset error for each column in the image sensor. | 11-12-2009 |
| 20090279809 | Apparatus and method for gain correction - An apparatus and method for digital column gain mismatch correction are described. At least one test signal pixel is added to each column in an image sensor. For each column the test signal from at least one test pixel is read and compared to a target value. A correction value is calculated based on comparing the test signal to the target value. The correction value is stored in a memory. When the regular photo-pixels are read, the photo-pixel signals are modified based on the stored correction value for each column. | 11-12-2009 |
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20090064196 | MODEL BASED DEVICE DRIVER CODE GENERATION - A driver model is generated that describes the configuration of one or more driver objects. The driver model and developer driver code are compiled to generate a driver including a machine readable driver model and compiled developer driver code, wherein the machine readable driver model and the complied developer driver code are independently serviceable. | 03-05-2009 |
| 20090138625 | SPLIT USER-MODE/KERNEL-MODE DEVICE DRIVER ARCHITECTURE - A device driver includes a kernel stub and a user-mode module. The device driver may access device registers while operating in user-mode to promote system stability while providing a low-latency software response from the system upon interrupts. Upon receipt of an interrupt, the kernel stub may run an interrupt service routine and write information to shared memory. Control is passed to the user-mode module by a reflector. The user-mode module may then read the information from the shared memory to continue servicing the interrupt. | 05-28-2009 |
| 20090204978 | SYNCHRONIZING SPLIT USER-MODE/KERNEL-MODE DEVICE DRIVER ARCHITECTURE - A device driver includes a kernel mode and a user-mode module. The device driver may access device registers while operating in user-mode to promote system stability while providing a low-latency software response from the system upon interrupts. The device driver may include kernel stubs that are loaded into the operating system, and may be device specific code written. The stubs may be called by a reflector to handle exceptions caught by the stubs. A reset stub may be invoked by the reflector when the user-mode module or host terminates abruptly or detects an interrupt storm. The reset stub may also be invoked if errant DMA operations are being performed by a hardware device. The reset stub may ensure that hardware immediately stops unfinished DMA from further transfer, and may be called by the user-mode driver module. | 08-13-2009 |
| 20090210888 | SOFTWARE ISOLATED DEVICE DRIVER ARCHITECTURE - A device driver includes a hypervisor stub and a virtual machine driver module. The device driver may access device registers while operating within a virtual machine to promote system stability while providing a low-latency software response from the system upon interrupts. Upon receipt of an interrupt, the hypervisor stub may run an interrupt service routine and write information to shared memory. Control is passed to the virtual machine driver module by a reflector. The virtual machine driver module may then read the information from the shared memory to continue servicing the interrupt. | 08-20-2009 |
