KR20150125630A - A light accumulation image sensor of parallel structure having remove circuit - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a light amount accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit. More specifically, the light amount accumulation image sensor collects electrons stored on the outside of a reference phase range to accumulate only valid light amount. The present invention includes: a photodiode storing the electrons when an optical signal is received; a shutter circuit which accumulates the electrons stored in the photodiode; the collection circuit which operates half a period away from the shutter circuit and collects the electrons stored in the photodiode; and a control unit which controls the shutter circuit and the collection circuit to operate while having a delay of half a period there-between and to accumulate the electrons for multiple times based on a specific phase.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a light accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit,

The present invention relates to a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit, and more particularly, to a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection structure, which collects electrons accumulated in a range other than the reference phase range, To an image sensor.

In general, an image sensor is used in a digital camera, and functions as an analog film that can convert an amount of light received from each pixel into an electronic signal to generate a single image. The image sensor has a form in which a plurality of photodiodes for detecting light and generating charges are arranged for each pixel.

The distance measurement method of the conventional distance measuring camera is a method of obtaining the distance information by matching the right and left images using a stereo camera and a method of measuring the time difference between the reflected light and the reflected light, And a method of calculating the distance by measuring the distance.

Since the conventional distance measuring apparatus can measure the distance only on the basis of one point, in order to obtain a certain range of distance information, the measuring person changes the measuring point of the distance measuring apparatus several times, and the measuring process has to be repeated a plurality of times .

In order to solve such a problem, Korean Patent Laid-Open No. 10-2011-0087112 relates to a 3D image display device using TOF (Time of Flight), more specifically, a distance between a vehicle and an object by using a TOF camera The present invention relates to a 3D image display apparatus using a TOF principle, and a method thereof, which provide a 3D image obtained by synthesizing the measured distance information with a 2D RGB image photographed by a general image camera. TOF cameras and general video cameras are installed on the front, rear, left, and right sides of the vehicle to synthesize 3D images for each direction, and then 3D images for each direction are merged to generate 3D images .

However, since the intensity of external light such as natural light may be different according to the surface on which the apparatus is installed in the vehicle, the 3D image display device has a large error in the provided distance information, In order to measure the phase during one wavelength, we still have to speed up the shutter speed, which causes the 3D image to darken.

Measuring the distance of light between the measurement camera and the measurement object, the electronic shutter operation time must be short. If the shutter operation time is short, the amount of received light is insufficient to obtain the desired brightness image.

In addition, the conventional distance measuring camera has a problem in that the reality of the stereoscopic image deteriorates due to the low resolution due to the cost problem and the color configuration that is simply processed through the software.

In order to solve the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for measuring the amount of light of a parallel structure having a collection circuit capable of obtaining a desired brightness image by periodically accumulating a light amount in a phase corresponding to a modulation wavelength And to provide a cumulative image sensor.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit for collecting accumulated light quantities other than the phase range to be measured and accumulating only effective accumulation light quantities.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit that easily removes a defective output value by adding an electronic collection circuit of a simple structure.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit, including a photodiode for accumulating electrons when an optical signal is received, a shutter circuit for accumulating electrons accumulated in the photodiode, And a controller for controlling the shutter circuit and the collection circuit to operate in a half period and controlling the accumulation of electrons a plurality of times based on a predetermined phase, .

The shutter circuit and the collection circuit of the light quantity accumulation image sensor of the parallel structure having the collection circuit of the present invention further include a gate transistor for determining the transfer of the electrons accumulated in the photodiode.

The shutter circuit of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit of the present invention may further include a accumulation transistor accumulating electrons transferred through the gate transistor.

The controller of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit of the present invention is characterized in that the operation of the gate transistor is controlled so that a plurality of optical signals are received on the basis of different phases.

The shutter circuit and the collection circuit of the light quantity accumulation image sensor of the parallel structure having the collection circuit of the present invention further include a reset transistor for removing electrons accumulated in the circuit.

The controller of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having a collection circuit of the present invention is characterized in that the reset transistor controls the reset transistor to be reset immediately before an accumulation operation for accumulating an optical signal corresponding to a certain phase a plurality of times.

The shutter circuit of the light quantity accumulation image sensor of the parallel structure having the collection circuit of the present invention further includes a first output transistor for outputting a voltage level according to the amount of electrons accumulated in the accumulation transistor for each pixel Row do.

The shutter circuit of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit of the present invention is further characterized by further comprising a second output transistor for selectively outputting a voltage level according to the amount of electrons accumulated in the plurality of pixels .

As described above, according to the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention, in order to measure the reciprocating distance of light, an amount of light with a phase corresponding to the modulation wavelength is periodically accumulated, There is an effect.

In addition, according to the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention, there is an effect of accumulating only the effective accumulation light quantity by collecting accumulated light quantities other than the phase range to be measured.

In addition, according to the parallel-structured light amount accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention, an electronic collection circuit of a simple structure is added, thereby making it possible to easily remove a defective output value.

1 is a circuit diagram showing a circuit configuration of a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit according to the present invention as a first embodiment;
Fig. 2 is a circuit diagram showing a circuit configuration of a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit according to the present invention as a second embodiment; Fig.
3 is a waveform diagram showing an input signal and an accumulated light amount of a control unit according to a phase of a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit according to the present invention when d = 0;
FIG. 4 is a waveform diagram showing an input signal and an accumulated light amount of a control unit according to a phase of a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit according to the present invention when d = dx.
5 is a circuit diagram showing a circuit configuration of a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit according to the present invention in which a second output transistor is included as an embodiment.

Specific features and advantages of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. The detailed description of the functions and configurations of the present invention will be omitted if it is determined that the gist of the present invention may be unnecessarily blurred.

The present invention relates to a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit, and more particularly, to a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection structure, which collects electrons accumulated in a range other than the reference phase range, To an image sensor.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 is a circuit diagram showing a circuit configuration of a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit according to the present invention as a first embodiment, Fig. 2 is a circuit diagram of a parallel structure having a collection circuit according to the present invention as a second embodiment FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram showing the circuit configuration of the light amount accumulation image sensor of FIG. 3; FIG. 3 is a graph showing the input signal and the accumulated light amount of the control unit according to the phase of the light amount accumulation image sensor of parallel structure having the collection circuit according to the present invention when d = 4 is a waveform diagram showing an input signal and an accumulated light amount of the control unit according to the phase of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention when d = dx, Fig. 6 is a circuit diagram showing a circuit configuration of a light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit according to the present invention including a second output transistor as an embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 1, a parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having a collection circuit according to the present invention includes a photodiode 100 for accumulating electrons when an optical signal is received, a shutter for accumulating electrons accumulated in the photodiode, A shutter circuit (300) which operates in a half cycle with the shutter circuit and collects the electrons accumulated in the photodiode; and a control circuit which controls the shutter circuit and the collection circuit to operate in a half period, And controls the electrons to accumulate a plurality of times.

In the photodiode 100, it is preferable that a pinned photodiode is used to accumulate electrons in accordance with an optical signal. Pinned photodiodes are photodetectors used in image sensors. They are high quantum efficiency, low dark current, and can be fully depleted. The quantum efficiency means the ratio of the quantum efficiency to the quantum energy incident on the photodetector, that is, the ratio (efficiency) at which the photon incident on the photodiode is converted into electrical energy. The dark current refers to the current flowing though the light is not irradiated, .

The shutter circuit and the collection circuit are arranged in a parallel structure around the photodiode to constitute the light quantity accumulation image sensor.

The shutter circuit 200 and the collection circuit 300 of the light quantity accumulation image sensor of the parallel structure having the collection circuit according to the present invention are provided with gate transistors 201 and 301 for determining the transfer of electrons accumulated in the photodiode 100 ). The shutter circuit 200 further includes an accumulation transistor 203 for accumulating the electrons transferred through the gate transistor 201.

The collection circuit 300 may further include an accumulation transistor 303 for accumulating the electrons transferred through the gate transistor 301.

The gate transistor 201 of the shutter circuit 200 serves to open the gate such that electrons accumulated in the photodiode 100 are transferred to the accumulation transistor 203 in the shutter circuit by being operated in a desired phase region of the received optical signal .

The gate transistor 301 of the collection circuit 300 plays a role of collecting defective electrons accumulated in the photodiode 100 after the gate transistor 201 of the shutter circuit is activated to transfer the accumulation electrons of a desired phase region do.

The shutter circuit 200 and the collection circuit 300 of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention further include reset transistors 202 and 302 for removing electrons accumulated in the circuit.

The shutter circuit 200 of the light quantity accumulation image sensor of the parallel structure having the collection circuit according to the present invention has a first output transistor 204 for outputting a voltage level according to the amount of electrons accumulated in the accumulation transistor for each pixel Row .

FIG. 1 shows a circuit configuration of a 4-transistor (transistor) image sensor most widely used as an embodiment, and the number of transistors is not limited. In addition, the basic operation of each pixel repeats 'optical signal reception → same phase accumulation → output', and the amount of light accumulated in addition to the effective accumulation range accumulating the same phase is collected by the collection circuit 300.

The controller of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention controls the reset transistors 202 and 302 to reset operation immediately before the cumulative operation in which the optical signals corresponding to a certain phase are accumulated a plurality of times .

The control unit applies a signal to the SEL line shown in FIG. 1 to turn on the first output transistor 204 of the shutter circuit 200 to which the gate terminal is coupled to the SEL line. As a result, one row (row) is selected among all the pixels.

The shutter circuit 200 and the reset transistors 202 and 302 and the gate transistors 201 and 301 of the collection circuit 300 are operated through the RS line and the TG_1 and TG_2 lines. As a result, the defective electrons remaining in the photodiode 100, the shutter circuit, and the collection circuit are reset by the previous optical signal receiving operation. And reads the reference voltage level output from the shutter circuit in the reset state.

When the control section turns off the operation of the shutter transistor and the reset transistors 202 and 302 and the gate transistors 201 and 301 of the collection circuit, electrons are accumulated in the photodiode 100 due to an optical signal received from the moment of operation OFF do.

The gate transistors 201 and 301 of the shutter circuit and the collection circuit are operated a plurality of times in accordance with the period of the optical signal and are operated in a half period. When the gate transistor 201 of the shutter circuit 200 is operated, electrons accumulated in the photodiode 100 are diffused into the diffusion region of the shutter circuit 200. The diffused electrons are accumulated in the accumulation transistor 203 of the shutter circuit.

Since the operation of the collection circuit 300 and the operation of the gate transistor 201 of the shutter circuit are different by half a period, defective electrons accumulated in the photodiode can be collected in addition to the effective phase range to be received.

The control unit of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention controls the operation of the gate transistors 201 and 301 so that a plurality of optical signals are received based on different phases, respectively.

The controller controls the gate transistor 201 of the shutter circuit to be operated a plurality of times based on a certain phase of the optical signal to accumulate electrons within a valid range in the accumulation transistor 203 of the shutter circuit, The transistor 301 is controlled to operate in a half cycle with the gate transistor 201 of the shutter circuit so that electrons outside the effective range are recovered.

If the voltage level corresponding to the amount of electrons accumulated in the accumulation transistor 203 of the shutter circuit is subtracted from the reference voltage level, a repetitive accumulated pure voltage level in the same phase of the received optical signal can be obtained. This is called Correlated Double Sampling.

As the number of operations of the gate transistors 201 and 301 for accumulating the light amount increases, the amount of accumulated light increases, so that the image will be brightly photographed. The distance between the image sensor and the measurement object according to the present invention is very close, Even if the phase difference of the optical signal is very small, the difference in the cumulative light amount will also increase by the accumulated number of times.

Also, it is desirable that the number of times the optical signal is accumulated increases as the modulation wavelength of the optical signal becomes short. The user may arbitrarily set the distance to the measurement target in advance or transmit the test optical signal set to the intermediate value, And the cumulative count may be set.

When the control unit turns OFF the operation of the first output transistor of the shutter circuit, the pixel Row is separated from the OUT line from which the voltage level is output.

Since the series of processes described above are repeatedly performed based on one optical signal phase, the operation of accumulating and outputting electrons based on different phases in a plurality of optical signals such as a second phase and a third phase should be repeated. It is possible to know the time difference between the transmission optical signal and the reception optical signal with high accuracy by comparing outputs according to accumulated amounts of electrons based on different phases.

The transmission optical signal should be transmitted a number of times equal to the number of phases to be accumulated and the control unit controls the plurality of transistors to operate in synchronization with the transmission optical signal.

As shown in FIG. 2, the collection circuit 300 may not include the accumulation transistor 303 shown in FIG. If the accumulation transistor is not included in the collection circuit, the gate transistor 201 and the reset transistor 302 can be constituted by only two transistors. Accordingly, the collection circuit 300 is greatly simplified, and the integration degree of the image sensor according to the present invention can be improved.

3 shows the amount of light accumulated in the shutter circuit and the collection circuit control signal of the control unit according to the reference phase when d = 0. If the distance between the image sensor and the measurement object according to the present invention is 0, the time difference and the phase difference between the transmission optical signal and the reception optical signal are 0, so that the LED source waveform and the returning light waveform of FIG.

The top waveform of FIG. 3 shows that when the shutter circuit is set to d = 0, the control signal TG_1 input from the control unit to accumulate the amount of light with reference to the phase 0 degree, And the bottom waveform is a control signal TG_2 inputted to the control section in order to accumulate the amount of light based on the phase of 180 degrees, and a control signal TG_2 inputted to the collection circuit to operate as a half- Is an input control signal TG_2.

0 and 180 degrees In order to measure the light quantity according to two reference phases, the transmission optical signal must also be transmitted twice. As the measurement is repeated several times, the reliability of the phase difference increases. However, since too many repetitive measurements result in waste of time and energy, it is preferable that the reference is based on two to four phases.

When an RS signal is simultaneously applied to the shutter circuit and the collection circuit so that the reset transistors of the respective circuits are activated and the gate transistors of the respective circuits are activated by signals applied to the lines TG_1 and TG_2, an initial reset process is performed before accumulating the light amount.

Except for the initial reset signal, the operation signals applied to the TG_1 and the TG_2 are a half period, and the shutter circuit and the gate transistor of the collection circuit operate in a half period due to an operation signal applied to the TG_1 and TG_2 lines in a half period.

Accordingly, electrons are accumulated in the shutter circuit by a hatched portion in the waveform FD_1 shown in Fig. 3, and the collection circuit collects electrons accumulated in an area other than the area where the shutter circuit accumulates electrons. In addition, the collection circuit collects defective electrons that may remain after the initial reset.

The controller of the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention is configured such that the shutter circuit and the reset transistors 202 and 302 of the collection circuit are operated after the gate transistor 201 included in the shutter circuit is operated a plurality of times And controls to reset when the voltage level corresponding to the accumulated amount of electrons is outputted.

The reset transistor of the shutter circuit and the pick-up circuit is turned off after initially performing a basic initial reset operation and then turned on after electrons accumulated in the cumulative transistor of the shutter circuit are output, thereby performing an initial reset operation again, Reset the former.

This makes it possible to obtain a clearer image than a method of continuously accumulating light quantities for each phase with respect to one optical signal.

4 shows the amount of light accumulated in the shutter circuit and the collection circuit control signal of the control unit according to the reference phase when d = dx. The phase difference between the LED source and the returning light waveform in FIG. 4 is arbitrarily specified.

If the distance between the image sensor and the measurement object according to the present invention is dx, the time difference and the phase difference between the transmission optical signal and the reception optical signal will be 2dx in reciprocation, and therefore the phase of the LED source waveform and the returning light waveform in FIG. It happens.

The top waveform of FIG. 4 shows the control signal TG_1 input from the control unit to accumulate the amount of light on the basis of the phase 0 degree when d = dx, and to the collection circuit And the bottom waveform is a control signal TG_2 inputted to the control section in order to accumulate the amount of light based on the phase of 180 degrees, and a control signal TG_2 inputted to the collection circuit to operate as a half- Is an input control signal TG_2.

When an RS signal is simultaneously applied to the shutter circuit and the collection circuit so that the reset transistors of the respective circuits are activated and the gate transistors of the respective circuits are activated by signals applied to the lines TG_1 and TG_2, an initial reset process is performed before accumulating the light amount.

Except for the initial reset signal, the operation signals applied to the TG_1 and the TG_2 are a half period, and the shutter circuit and the gate transistor of the collection circuit operate in a half period due to an operation signal applied to the TG_1 and TG_2 lines in a half period.

As a result, electrons are accumulated in the shutter circuit by the hatched portion in the waveform FD_1 shown in FIG. 4, and the collection circuit collects electrons accumulated in a region other than the region where the shutter circuit accumulates electrons. In addition, the collection circuit collects defective electrons that may remain after the initial reset.

The controller turns on the reset circuit and the gate transistor of the shutter circuit and the collector circuit so that the gate transistor is reset for a predetermined amount of light accumulation after the predetermined number of times of operation.

This makes it possible to obtain a clearer image than a method of continuously accumulating light quantities for each phase with respect to one optical signal.

The phase difference between the transmission optical signal and the reflected optical signal can be obtained on the basis of the difference between the transmission optical signal and the output voltage level caused by the phase difference between the transmission optical signal and the reception optical signal reflected by the measurement object.

Equation (1) is a formula for calculating the phase difference using the accumulated light amount with respect to four different phases.

The difference between the magnitude A1 of the first reflected optical signal and the magnitude A3 of the third reflected optical signal is a numerator and the difference between the magnitude A2 of the second reflected optical signal and the magnitude A4 of the fourth reflected optical signal is Taking an arc tangent as a denominator, the phase difference (?) Can be obtained.

The magnitudes A1 to A4 of the reflected optical signal may have a value of 0 or 1 indicating the magnitude of the pulse. For example, the value of 0 or 1 may be determined based on the light amount of the phase in which the light amount starts to accumulate in accordance with the reference phase, the light amount in the instant when the accumulation ends, or the middle value of the phase area in which the light amount accumulates have.

3, the amount of light accumulated in the cumulative transistor of the shutter circuit is 0 at 0 degree with respect to the center point of the region where the light amount is accumulated, and the amount of light accumulated in the cumulative transistor of the shutter circuit is 0 based on 180 degrees.

4, the amount of light accumulated in the cumulative transistor of the shutter circuit is 0 at 0 degree with respect to the center point of the region where the light amount is accumulated, and the amount of light accumulated in the cumulative transistor of the shutter circuit is 1 at 180 degrees. Therefore, it can be seen that the received optical signal has a phase difference of 0 to 180 degrees.

Assuming that the optical signal is completely exposed when the optical signal is ON, the accumulated amount of light based on 0 degree is 10 and the accumulated amount of light based on 180 degree is 0 in FIG. 3, and 0 degree in FIG. The amount of accumulated light based on the reference is 5, and the accumulated amount of light based on 180 degrees is 5. The accumulated amount of light is reduced on the basis of 0 degree and the accumulated amount of light is increased on the basis of 180 degrees, so that it can be seen that the phase of the received optical signal of FIG. 4 is delayed within 0 to 180 degrees.

The shutter circuit 200 of the light quantity accumulation image sensor of the parallel structure having the collection circuit according to the present invention includes a second output transistor 204 for selectively outputting a voltage level corresponding to the amount of electrons accumulated in each of the plurality of pixels .

FIG. 5 shows an image sensor having a 5-transistor circuit structure as an embodiment and has a structure in which the second output transistor 204 is further included in the circuit of FIG.

A CMOS image sensor with a 4-transistor structure has a lower image quality than a CCD image sensor because of a circuit-to-circuit imbalance caused by a circuit existing separately in each line. After correction, some noise can be eliminated, but it does not meet the image quality of the CCD image sensor. To solve this problem, an image sensor having a 5-transistor structure can be used.

The 5-transistor image sensor has a structure similar to that of the 4-transistor image sensor, but a single pixel of the pixel Row can be selected in addition to the first output transistor for selecting the pixel Row. Thus, it is possible to control the operation so that the voltage level corresponding to the cumulative electron amount is outputted.

First, the reset transistor and the gate transistor of the shutter circuit and the collection circuit are operated to reset the electrons remaining in the accumulation transistor of the photodiode and each circuit, and turn on the SEL signal to select the pixel. Thereafter, an operation signal is applied to the TG_1 signal line so that the gate transistor is operated through the operation of the added second output transistor. This allows a random access different from the 4-transistor circuit structure.

After resetting, the control unit applies a signal to the SEL line to output a reference voltage level. When the reset transistor and the gate transistor of each circuit are closed, electrons corresponding to the optical signal start to be accumulated in the photodiode, and the gate transistor of the shutter circuit is activated to accumulate the accumulated electrons in the accumulated transistor of the shutter circuit do.

The gate transistor is repeatedly operated in accordance with the reference phase of the optical signal so that the amount of light based on the same phase is accumulated in the accumulation transistor and the collection circuit is operated by a half cycle of the cycle in which the shutter circuit is repeatedly operated And collects electronic quantities other than an invalid phase range.

The control unit controls the voltage level corresponding to the amount of electrons accumulated in the accumulation transistor of the shutter circuit to be output to the OUT line and reads the voltage level output of the other pixels in the same manner.

The collection circuit 300 may further include a first output transistor (not shown) for outputting a voltage level corresponding to the amount of electrons accumulated in the accumulation transistor 303 in the collection circuit.

Since the collection circuit is operated in a half cycle with the shutter circuit, the amount of light is accumulated based on a phase having a difference of 180 degrees of phases accumulated on the basis of the shutter circuit. Therefore, the collector circuit further includes a first output transistor to output a voltage level value according to the amount of electrons accumulated in the accumulation transistor of the collection circuit, so that the amount of light is accumulated based on two phases in one optical signal, You can get it.

Accordingly, when the shutter circuit accumulates the amount of light with respect to the first reception optical signal by 0 degree and the second reception optical signal with reference to 90 degree, the collection circuit in the same pixel is 180 degrees from the first reception optical signal, The light amount can be cumulatively output based on four phases in two optical signals.

In a task where precise distance measurement is not required, the distance can be measured even in a single received optical signal.

A general two-dimensional image can be obtained with the image sensor of the present invention. In order to obtain a general two-dimensional image, the shutter circuit can be implemented without operation of the collection circuit. The gate transistor of the shutter circuit can be operated in the same manner as a general photographing operation without being repeatedly operated in synchronization with the optical signal. When a general two-dimensional image is obtained, electrons need not be repeatedly accumulated in the accumulation transistor. Also, the ON time of the gate transistor is adjusted according to the brightness of the measurement object, and the exposure time can be controlled.

The operation sequence of each element for obtaining a two-dimensional image is performed by the operation of the gate transistor and the reset transistor of the shutter circuit for initial reset, the accumulation of electrons in the photodiode by the operation of the gate transistor and the reset transistor, The operation of the gate transistor to transfer the accumulated electrons, and the output.

The two-dimensional image obtained as described above can realize a stereoscopic image through the distance information obtained by the image sensor according to the present invention and the pixel-by-pixel matching.

As described above, according to the parallel-structured light quantity accumulation image sensor having the collection circuit according to the present invention, in order to measure the reciprocating distance of light, an amount of light with a phase corresponding to the modulation wavelength is periodically accumulated, The accumulated light quantity other than the phase range to be measured can be collected to accumulate only the effective accumulated light quantity and the effect of easily removing the defective output value can be obtained by adding the electronic collection circuit of simple structure.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it is clearly understood that the same is by way of illustration and example only and is not to be taken as a limitation of the scope of the present invention. Or modify it. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be construed in light of the claims set forth to cover many of such variations.

100: photodiode
200: shutter circuit
201: gate transistor
202:
203: Cumulative transistor
204: first output transistor
205: second output transistor
300: Collection circuit
301: gate transistor
302: reset transistor
303: Cumulative transistor

Claims (8)

A photodiode for accumulating electrons when an optical signal is received;
A shutter circuit for accumulating electrons accumulated in the photodiode;
A collection circuit which operates in a half cycle with the shutter circuit and collects the electrons accumulated in the photodiode;
And a controller for controlling the shutter circuit and the collection circuit to operate in a half period and controlling the accumulation of electrons a plurality of times based on a predetermined phase,
A light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit.
The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the shutter circuit and the collection circuit further comprise a gate transistor for determining the transfer of the electrons accumulated in the photodiode
A light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit.
The method according to claim 1,
And the shutter circuit further comprises an accumulation transistor accumulating electrons transferred through the gate transistor
A light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit.
3. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the control unit controls the operation of the gate transistor such that a plurality of optical signals are received based on different phases, respectively
A light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit.
5. The method of claim 4,
Wherein the shutter circuit and the collection circuit further comprise a reset transistor for removing electrons accumulated in the circuit
A light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit.
6. The method of claim 5,
Wherein the controller controls the reset transistor to be reset immediately before an accumulation operation in which the optical signal corresponding to a certain phase is accumulated a plurality of times
A light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit.
The method according to claim 6,
Wherein the shutter circuit further comprises a first output transistor for outputting a voltage level according to an amount of electrons accumulated in the accumulation transistor for each pixel Row
A light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit.
The method of claim 7, wherein
Characterized in that the shutter circuit further comprises a second output transistor for selectively outputting a voltage level corresponding to an amount of electrons accumulated in a plurality of pixels
A light quantity accumulation image sensor of a parallel structure having a collection circuit.

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