Omnivision Technologies, Inc.

Apple Inc.

Chun-Ming Tang

Tiejun Dai

Zheng Yang

Cheuk Chi Lo

Rui Wang

Chun-Yao Huang

Hiroaki Ebihara

Yingkan Lin

Patrick B Bennett

Chao-Fang Tsai

Hasan Akyol

Ivan Knez

Tianjia Sun

John T Wetherell

Xuebei Yang

Chung-Lun Edwin Hsu

Jingyi Liu

Cheng Kai Chen

Chaohao Wang

Hopil Bae

Rui Liu

Derek Keith Shaeffer

Sunggu Kang

Lei Yuan

Sheng Zhang

Baris Cagdaser

Jungmin Lee

Enkhamgalan Dorjgotov

Andrew C Lin

Graham Butler Myhre

James E Pedder

Steven E Molesa

Henry C Jen

Shingo Hatanaka

Xiaofeng Wang

Liping Deng

Giovanni Carbone

Christopher L Boitnott

Michael Slootsky

Jaein Choi

Qingfei Chen

Gloria Wong

Hairong Tang

Hitoshi Yamamoto

Kwang Ohk Cheon

Wendi Chang

KiBeom Kim

Lingtao Wang

Ali Tabatabaei

Xin Hu

Alejandro X Levander

To C Tan

EnkhAmgalan Dorjgotov

Runjie Xu

Andrew H Lin

Peng Xu

Cheng Chen

Rni Liu

Display panels and methods of fabrication are described which a seal ring is formed within a build-up structure over a semiconductor substrate. The seal ring may include an outer perimeter wall and an inner setback wall spaced apart from the outer perimeter wall and directly underneath a contact ledge of the display panel.

Seal ring with inner setback wall for yield improvement

Systems and methods may reduce or eliminate image artifacts due to a defective pixel of an electronic display. An electronic display may include pixels that respectively include a self-emissive element, pixel drive circuitry that supplies a pixel drive current to drive the self-emissive element, and signal routing circuitry that reduces or eliminates a visual artifact due to a defective pixel among the pixels. The signal routing circuitry may do this by turning off the self-emissive element, supplying image data from the pixel drive circuitry to a first adjacent pixel, or receiving image data from other pixel drive circuitry from the first adjacent pixel or a second adjacent pixel.

Pixel screening and repair

Embodiments disclosed herein provide systems and methods for testing and repairing various aspects of an electronic display. The electronic display includes a reference array and an active array. The electronic display also includes test circuitry used to test individual or any combination of pixels of the electronic display. Switches may be disposed between the pixels and the test circuitry to be to repair the various components of the electronic display.

Circuitry for screening defective portion of display chip

An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display may have an array of organic light-emitting diode pixels that each have OLED layers interposed between a cathode and an anode. Voltage may be applied to the anode of each pixel to control the magnitude of emitted light. The conductivity of the OLED layers may allow leakage current to pass between neighboring anodes in the display. To reduce leakage current and the accompanying cross-talk in a display, the pixel definition layer may disrupt continuity of the OLED layers. The pixel definition layer may have a steep sidewall, a sidewall with an undercut, or a sidewall surface with a plurality of curves to disrupt continuity of the OLED layers. A control gate that is coupled to a bias voltage and covered by gate dielectric may be used to form an organic thin-film transistor that shuts the leakage current channel between adjacent anodes on the display.

Organic light-emitting diode display with reduced lateral leakage

A display with an array of pixels may be provided with redundant pixel control circuits. Switching circuitry may be used to couple pixel control circuits to light-emitting diodes for the pixels. The switching circuitry can be configured using control signals from non-volatile memory in decoder circuitry such as thermometer code decoder circuitry. During manufacturing, the display may be inspected for defects. Defective pixel control circuits can be replaced with redundant pixel control circuits so that the display operates satisfactory. The decoder circuitry may supply control signals to the switching circuitry to switch redundant pixel control circuitry into use while bypassing defective pixel control circuits.

Display with redundancy

A hybrid bonded image sensor has a photodiode die with macrocells having at least one photodiode and a bond contact; a supporting circuitry die with multiple supercells, each supercell having at least one macrocell unit having a bond contact coupled to the bond contact of a macrocell of the photodiode die. Each macrocell unit lies within a supercell and has a reset transistor adapted to reset photodiodes of the macrocell of the photodiode die. Each supercell has at least one common source amplifier adapted to receive signal from the bond contact of a selected macrocell unit of the supercell, the common source amplifier coupled to drive a column line through a selectable source follower. In embodiments, the common source amplifiers of several supercells drive the selectable source follower through a distributed differential amplifier.

Two stage amplifier readout circuit in pixel level hybrid bond image sensors

A hybrid-bonded image sensor has a photodiode die with multiple macrocells; each macrocell has at least one photodiode and a coupling region. The coupling regions couple to a coupling region of a macrocell unit of a supporting circuitry die where they feed an input of an amplifier and a feedback capacitor. The feedback capacitor also couples to output of the amplifier, and the amplifier inverts between the input and the output. The method includes resetting a photodiode of the photodiode die; coupling signal from photodiode through the bond point to the supporting circuitry die to a feedback capacitor and to an input of the amplifier, the feedback capacitor also coupled to an inverting output of the amplifier; and amplifying the signal with the amplifier, where a capacitance of the feedback capacitor determines a gain of the amplifier.

Feedback capacitor and method for readout of hybrid bonded image sensors

A pixel circuit includes a photodiode, and a transfer transistor coupled to the photodiode. A floating diffusion is coupled to the transfer transistor coupled to transfer image charge from the photodiode to the floating diffusion. An amplifier circuit includes an input coupled to the floating diffusion, an output coupled to generate an image data signal of the pixel circuit, and a variable bias terminal coupled to receive a variable bias signal. A reset switch is coupled between the output and input of the amplifier circuit to reset the amplifier circuit in response to a reset signal. A variable bias generator circuit is coupled to generate the variable bias signal in response to a reset signal to transition the variable bias signal from a first bias signal value to a second bias signal value in response to a transition of the reset signal from an active state to an inactive state.

Imaging sensor with amplifier having variable bias and increased output signal range

An image sensor includes a photodiode disposed in a first semiconductor material, and the photodiode is positioned to absorb image light through the backside of the first semiconductor material. A first floating diffusion is disposed proximate to the photodiode and coupled to receive image charge from the photodiode in response to a transfer signal applied to a transfer gate disposed between the photodiode and the first floating diffusion. A second semiconductor material, including a second floating diffusion, is disposed proximate to the frontside of the first semiconductor material. A dielectric material is disposed between the first semiconductor material and the second semiconductor material, and includes a first bonding via extending from the first floating diffusion to the second floating diffusion, a second bonding via disposed laterally proximate to the first bonding via, and a third bonding via disposed laterally proximate to the first bonding via.

Feedback capacitor formed by bonding-via in pixel level bond

An imaging system includes an image sensor and a row-period compensator. The image sensor includes an array of photosensitive pixels and electrical circuitry for controlling the array of photosensitive pixels and for reading accumulated electrical charge therefrom. The electrical circuitry is at least partially powered from a positive power rail and a negative power rail. The row-period compensator is for compensating for a change in current drawn by the electrical circuitry during at least part of a row-period of the image sensor, and the row-period compensator is electrically coupled between the positive and negative power rails. A method for compensating for a change in current drawn by electrical circuitry of an image sensor includes controlling a magnitude of compensation current drawn by a row-period compensator, to compensate for a change in current drawn by the electrical circuitry of the image sensor.

Imaging systems including row-period compensators and associated methods

A method of implementing dynamic ground sharing in an image sensor with pipeline architecture starts with a pixel array capturing image data. Pixel array includes pixels to generate pixel data signals, respectively. A readout circuitry acquires the image data from a row in the pixel array. An analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) circuitry included in the readout circuitry samples the image data from the row to obtain sampled input data. When the ADC circuitry is sampling, a ground sharing switch is closed to couple the pixel array and the ADC circuitry to a common ground. When the ADC circuitry is not sampling, the ground sharing switch is open to separate the pixel array and the ADC circuitry from the common ground. The ADC circuitry converts the sampled image data from analog to digital to obtain an ADC output. Other embodiments are described.

Method and system for implementing dynamic ground sharing in an image sensor with pipeline architecture

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Chun-Ming Tang