Tina Penny Liu

US Patent:

7154548, Dec 26, 2006

Filed:

Jan 29, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/772267

Inventors:

Tina Y Liu - Tarzana CA, US

Assignee:

Valley Oak Semiconductor - Westlake Village CA

International Classification:

H04N 3/14
H04N 5/335

US Classification:

348302, 2502081

Abstract:

An electronic imaging chip containing an array of photodiodes includes a multiplexed column buffer. The multiplexed column buffer serves a plurality of columns in the photodiode array. By multiplexing active amplifier elements, such as the differential gain amplifiers and the bus driver amplifiers, a wider area than one column width is available on the semiconductor chip for layout of the column buffer. In the disclosed embodiment, 4 columns share a common multiplexed column buffer. The area available for layout of the multiplexed column buffer is 4 times as wide as compared to that for a non-multiplexed column buffer.

US Patent:

7180579, Feb 20, 2007

Filed:

Mar 22, 2004

Appl. No.:

10/806037

Inventors:

David E. Ludwig - Irvine CA, US
John V. Kennedy - Irvine CA, US
William Kleinhans - Westlake Village CA, US
Tina Liu - Westlake Village CA, US
Christian Krutzik - Costa Mesa CA, US

Assignee:

Irvine Sensors Corp. - Costa Mesa CA

International Classification:

G01C 3/08

US Classification:

356 401, 356 501, 356 502, 356 402

Abstract:

A 3-D LADAR imaging system incorporating stacked microelectronic layers is provided. A light source is imaged upon a target through beam shaping optics. Photons reflected from the target are collected and imaged upon a detector array though collection optics. The detector array signals are fed into a multilayer processing module wherein each layer includes detector signal processing circuitry. The detector array signals are amplified, compared to a user-defined threshold, digitized and fed into a high speed FIFO range bin. Dependant on the value of the digit contained in the bins in the register, and the digit's bin location, the time of a photon reflection from a target surface can be determined. A Ttrigger signal defines the reflection time represented by each bin location by resetting appropriate circuitry to begin processing. The bin data representing the photon reflections from the various target surfaces are read out of the FIFO and processed using appropriate circuitry to create a 3-D point cloud for creating a 3-D target image.