Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Samsung Ekectrinics Co., Ltd.

Moo-young Kim

Yong-duk Cho

Kwang-Hyun Lee

Sang-ryong Kim

Hong-kook Kim

Tae-Chan Kim

Yong-suk Choi

Kyoung-Min Koh

Jin-woo Choi

Taechan Kim

Woong Joo

Seok-yong Hong

Jae-Cheol Yun

Minseok Oh

Nam-soo Kim

Soonik Cho

Yun-Hong Kim

Doh-suk Kim

Kee-eun Oh

Nam-kyu Ha

An image sensor includes a pixel array of pixels arranged in one or more rows and one or more columns, the pixel array configured to generate an image based on light being incident on one or more pixels of the pixel array. The image sensor includes pixel load circuitry connected to one column of pixels and including transistors serially connected to each other. The image sensor includes switches connected in parallel to separate, respective nodes between adjacent transistors. The image sensor includes image sensor processing circuitry configured to receive, from image processor circuitry, gain information indicating an intensity of light concurrently with an image being generated by the image sensor, and control at least one switch of the plurality of switches to be turned on/off to change an electrical path of a current that passes through the pixel load circuitry, based on the gain information.

Image sensors and methods of operating the same

An analog-to-digital converter includes a comparator, a switch, and a counter circuit. The comparator is configured to generate a comparison signal by comparing an analog signal received through a first signal line and a reference signal received through a second signal line. The switch is coupled between the first signal line and the comparator. The switch is open before the analog signal is applied to the first signal line to disconnect the first signal line from the comparator, and is closed after the analog signal is applied to the first signal line to provide the analog signal to the comparator. The counter circuit is configured to generate a digital signal corresponding to the analog signal by performing a count operation in synchronization with a count clock signal based on the comparison signal.

Analog-to-digital converters and image sensor having the same

A unit pixel of an image sensor includes a photoelectric conversion unit, a mode control unit, a first signal generation unit and a second signal generation unit. The photoelectric conversion unit generates photo-charges in response to incident light and provides the photo-charges to a first node. The mode control unit prevents the photo-charges from being discharged from the first node in a first operation mode, and generates a sensing current by discharging the photo-charges and generates a sensing voltage proportional to the sensing current in a second operation mode. The first signal generation unit generates an analog signal based on an amount of the photo-charges accumulated in the first node in the first operation mode. The second signal generation unit generates an on signal and an off signal based on a change of the sensing voltage in the second operation mode. The unit pixel provides various sensing outputs effectively.

Unit pixel of image sensor and image sensor having the same

An image sensor can include a pixel array including a plurality of unit pixels and a row driver arranged in a matrix form that includes a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns. Respective ones of the unit pixels may convent an incident light to an electric signal and may store the electric signal. The row driver may sequentially scan the plurality of rows and may sequentially perform an electronic shutter operation and read-out operation. The electronic shutter operation may reset the stored electric signal in each unit pixel and the read-out operation may read-out the stored electric signal in each unit pixel. The electric shutter operation can include a preliminary shutter operation and a main shutter operation which are sequentially performed on one row. The row driver may overlap the main shutter operation on a first row and the preliminary shutter operation on a second row.

Image sensors, image acquisition devices and electronic devices utilizing overlapping shutter operations

An ambient light sensor includes a photoelectric conversion unit, a current control unit, a signal conversion unit and a comparison unit. The photoelectric conversion unit provides a photo current having a magnitude corresponding to illuminance of incident light to a first node. The current control unit generates a control current exponentially proportional to an elapse time based on a clock signal, provides the control current to the first node, and outputs a digital code corresponding to the elapse time in response to a reset signal. The signal conversion unit generates a comparison voltage logarithmically proportional to a sum of the photo current and the control current. The comparison unit generates the reset signal by comparing a magnitude of the comparison voltage and a magnitude of a reference voltage. The ambient light sensor generates the digital code effectively representing illuminance of ambient light that eyes of a human being perceives.

Ambient light sensor and electronic system having the same

An image device including a pixel array and a controller, The pixel array having first pixels and second pixels and corresponding channel drivers. The controller may perform operations of a dynamic vision sensor (DVS), an ambient light sensor (ALS) and a proximity sensor (PS).

Image device including dynamic vision sensor, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor function

A speech enhancement method, including the steps of: (a) segmenting an input speech signal into a plurality of frames and transforming each frame signal into a signal of the frequency domain; (b) computing the signal-to-noise ratio of a current frame, and computing signal-to-noise ratio of a frame immediately preceding the current frame; (c) computing the predicted signal-to-noise ratio of the current frame which is predicted based on the preceding frame and computing the speech absence probability using the signal-to-noise ratio and predicted signal-to-noise ratio of the current frame; (d) correcting the two signal-to-noise ratios obtained in the step (b) based on the speech absence probability computed in the step (c); (e) computing the gain of the current frame with the two corrected signal-to-noise ratios obtained in the step (d), and multiplying the speech spectrum of the current frame by the computed gain; (f) estimating the noise and speech power for the next frame to calculate the predicted signal-to-noise ratio for the next frame, and providing the predicted signal-to-noise ratio for the next frame as the predicted signal-to-noise ratio of the current frame for the step (c); and (g) transforming the result spectrum of the step (e) into a signal of the time domain. The noise spectrum is estimated in speech presence intervals based on the speech absence probability, as well as in speech absence intervals, and the predicted SNR and gain are updated on a per-channel basis of each frame according to the noise spectrum estimate, which in turn improves the speech spectrum in various noise environments.

Speech enhancement method

A variable dimension spectral magnitude quantization apparatus and method using a predictive and mel scale binary vector is provided. The apparatus according to linear prediction spectral envelope and residual spectral envelope quantization using low order linear prediction modeling and residual spectrum modeling, includes a predictive quantizer for obtaining a predictive-quantized first residual spectral envelope from a quantized previous residual spectral envelope, a mel-scale binary vector quantizer for obtaining a second residual spectral envelope represented with a linear scale code vector using a mel-scale binary vector codebook, a synthesized spectral envelope generator for adding the output of the predictive quantizer and the output of the mel-scale binary vector quantizer to generate a quantized residual spectral envelope and multiplying the quantized residual spectral envelope by a corresponding quantized linear prediction spectral envelope to generate a synthesized spectral envelope, a comparator for comparing the synthesized spectral envelope with an original spectral envelope, and a minimum value detector for detecting a minimum value from the values sequentially obtained by the comparator.

Variable dimension spectral magnitude quantization apparatus and method using predictive and mel-scale binary vector

An apparatus for quantizing the phase of a speech signal using a perceptual weighting function and a method therefor are provided. The apparatus for quantizing the phase of a speech signal using a perceptual weighting function includes a phase information extractor for obtaining the phase of each harmonic frequency in a speech signal represented by the discrete sum of periodic signals having different harmonic frequency components, a quantization noise shaping unit for controlling the amount of quantization noise of each phase using a perceptual weighting function, which makes quantization noise less than a predetermined just noticeable difference (JND) of the phase, a quantization bit assigner for assigning quantization bits to each phase according to the controlled amount of quantization noise, and a scalar quantizer for quantizing each phase by the assigned quantization bits. It is possible to improve the quality of encoded speech by quantizing phase information using a perceptual weighting function.

Apparatus for quantizing phase of speech signal using perceptual weighting function and method therefor

An apparatus and method for detecting transitional parts of speech, and a method of synthesizing transitional parts of speech, are provided. This apparatus includes a residual signal preprocessor for emphasizing a period of a speech residual signal which includes a peak value, a relative peak value calculation unit for obtaining a peak value of a preprocessed residual signal and a relative peak value using a predetermined reference peak value, and a transitional part detector for detecting transitional parts of speech on the basis of the relative peak value.

Apparatus and method for detecting transitional part of speech and method of synthesizing transitional parts of speech

An apparatus for quantizing a spectral envelope with noise robustness showing high performance even under a background noise environment and a channel noise environment, and a method therefor, are provided. The spectral envelope quantizing apparatus includes a spectral envelope quantizing apparatus with noise robustness for representing a spectral envelope of speech by a minimum number of bits for the optimal coding of a speech signal. The apparatus includes a line spectrum frequencies (LSFs) input portion for converting linear predictive coding coefficients extracted from the speech into Nth order line spectrum frequencies coefficients and inputting the coefficients as the LSFs of a current frame. It also includes a linked split-vector quantizing portion for dividing the LSFs into a predetermined number of linked sub-vectors and quantizing the sub-vectors, and a predictive linked split-vector quantizing portion for obtaining the difference between the LSFs and the LSFs of a previous frame and vector-quantizing the difference. The apparatus further includes an error selector for comparing the error values of the LSFs quantized in the linked split-vector quantizing portion and the predictive linked split-vector quantizing portion, selecting the codebook index of the quantized LSFs having the smaller error value, and outputting the selected codebook index together with a mode bit.

Apparatus for quantizing spectral envelope including error selector for selecting a codebook index of a quantized LSF having a smaller error value and method therefor

A method and an apparatus for determining multiband voicing levels using a frequency moving method in a vocoder are provided. The method for determining the multiband voicing levels using the frequency moving method according to the present invention in the vocoder includes the steps of (a) applying a window to an input voice signal and obtaining a power spectrum from a voice spectrum obtained by Fourier converting a windowed signal, (b) moving the frequency of each subband to an origin after dividing the power spectrum into a predetermined number of subbands, (c) obtaining autocorrelation values of the respective subbands by inverse Fourier converting the power spectrum the frequency of which is moved to the origin, and (d) normalizing the respective autocorrelation values and determining the voicing levels of the subbands from the normalized autocorrelation values.

Method and apparatus for determining multiband voicing levels using frequency shifting method in vocoder

A pitch determination apparatus and method using spectro-temporal autocorrelation to prevent pitch determination errors are provided. The pitch determination apparatus using spectro-temporal autocorrelation includes a formant bandwidth extension unit for extending a formant bandwidth to reduce the influence of the first formant with respect to an input voice, a temporal autocorrelation calculation unit for calculating an autocorrelation value of a time axial voice within a candidate pitch range with respect to a time axial speech signal output from the formant bandwidth extension unit, a spectral autocorrelation calculation unit for transforming the time axial speech signal output from the formant bandwidth extension unit into a frequency axial signal, and calculating an autocorrelation value between frequency axis amplitude spectrums within the candidate pitch range, an autocorrelation value synthesis unit for summing the autocorrelation values obtained by the temporal and spectral autocorrelation calculation units and obtaining a spectro-temporal autocorrelation value, and a pitch determination unit for determining a pitch having a maximum spectro-temporal autocorrelation value as a final pitch. According to this apparatus, pitch determination errors are reduced by determining a pitch using the temporal and spectral autocorrelation values, thus improving the quality of speech communication.

Pitch determination apparatus and method using spectro-temporal autocorrelation

A of estimating a pitch in a multiband excitation vocoder is provided. The method includes the steps of (a) obtaining an error amount with respect to respective pitch candidates in a predetermined pitch area from an input voice magnitude spectrum, (b) obtaining a weighted function with respect to the respective pitch candidates, (c) obtaining a weighted error amount with respect to the respective pitch candidates, and (d) determining the candidate pitch having the minimum error amount in the weighted error amount with respect to the respective pitch candidates to be an estimated pitch. According to the present invention, in the vocoder of the multiband excitation method, it is possible to obtain high speech quality due to a short delay time since it is possible to remove a gross pitch error without using a pitch tracking method.

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Suwon-si, South Korea

Moo-young Kim