Omnivision Technologies, Inc.

Jingyi Liu

Tianjia Sun

Chun-Ming Tang

Qingfei Chen

Xin Hu

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.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Jingyi Liu