Sony Corporation

Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation

Motoyasu Yano

Masaki Yoshioka

Keiichi Shinozaki

Toshio Suzuki

Masayuki Katakura

Nobuhiko Shigyo

Masahiro Ichihashi

Ken Kitamura

Eizo Okamoto

Kazumasa Nishimura

Kenya Kondou

Syou Mitsuishi

Takeshi Koyama

Masashi Takeda

Yoshihiro Komatsu

Yuichi Takagi

Takaaki Sugiyama

Mitsuru Suzuki

Genichiro Oga

Kouzou Mawatari

Masataka Kawase

A charge pump circuit by which fundamental issues involved in the voltage feedback type charge pump circuit have been solved is realized. A power supply circuit includes a charge pump circuit, a feedback circuit feeding an output of the charge pump circuit back to an input of the charge pump circuit, a first current source causing a constant current to flow through the feedback circuit, a MOS transistor element interposed in a middle of the feedback circuit, a resistor element interposed at a position closer to the output of the charge pump circuit than the MOS transistor element in the feedback circuit, a bias circuit applying a constant voltage to a control terminal of the MOS transistor element, and a control section controlling a value of the constant current which the first current source flows through the feedback circuit.

Power supply circuit comprising a charge pump circuit and a feedback circuit for the charge pump circuit

An object of the present technology is to stably operate a power supply circuit. A charge switch is connected to a first terminal of a capacitor and charges the capacitor with an input voltage on the basis of a control signal inputted to a control terminal. A discharge switch is complementary with the charge switch, is connected to the first terminal of the capacitor, and discharges on the basis of the control signal inputted to the control terminal the voltage charged to the capacitor, thereby generating an output voltage. A charge control signal converting section converts a charge control signal that controls the charge into a control signal referenced to the input voltage and inputs the resulting control signal to the control terminal of the charge switch. A discharge control signal converting section converts a discharge control signal that controls the discharge into a control signal referenced to the output voltage and inputs the resulting control signal to the control terminal of the discharge switch. A pulse voltage supplying section supplies a pulse voltage to a second terminal. A control signal generating section exclusively generates the charge control signal and the discharge control signal and supplies the charge control signal and the discharge control signal.

Power supply circuit and power supply apparatus

Disclosed herein is a capacitative element, including: a first electrode formed on a substrate; and a second electrode provided so as to sandwich a dielectric between the first electrode and the second electrode and so as to surround the first electrode on four sides along a surface of the substrate.

Capacitative element

Disclosed herein is a semiconductor integrated circuit including a protected circuit; and a protection element formed on the same semiconductor substrate as the protected circuit and adapted to protect the protected circuit, wherein the protection element includes two diodes having their anodes connected together to form a floating node and two cathodes connected to the protected circuit, the two diodes are formed in a well-in-well structure on the semiconductor substrate, and the well-in-well structure includes a P-type well forming the floating gate, an N-type well which surrounds the surfaces of the P-type well other than that on the front side of the substrate with the deep portion side of the substrate so as to form the cathode of one of the diodes, and a first N-type region formed in the P-type well so as to form the cathode of the other diode.

Semiconductor integrated circuit

Disclosed herein are a digital-to-analog converter and a video display device. The digital-to-analog converter includes a converting section. The converting section has a code converting section, a reference voltage generating section, a plurality of transistors, and a plurality of gate electrodes. The video display device includes: a pixel section; a plurality of signal lines; one resistor string; and a plurality of converting sections.

Digital-to-analog converter and image display device

Disclosed herein is a digital-to-analog converter. The digital-to-analog converter includes: a higher resistor string; a lower resistor string; an operational amplifier; a higher selector; a lower selector; a first switch; a higher capacitor; a second switch; a third switch; and a control circuit.

A defect detection of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is electrically performed on a large-scale display, comprising a plurality of light-emitting diodes arranged by a predetermined arrangement on an image display face, voltage detection portions for applying a constant current to a plurality of light-emitting diodes in an off region at a forward voltage or less in accordance with an input of a signal indicating a defect detection mode and detecting voltages between terminals of light-emitting diodes arising when the constant current flows there through, and a defect detection portion for electrically detecting a defect from the plurality of light-emitting diodes based on detection results of the voltage detection portion; and drive circuit devices (driver ICs) having the above configuration are serially connected and an electric signal indicating a result of defect detection is output from its final stage.

Image display device, drive circuit device and defect detection method of light-emitting diode

A capacitance sensor used as a fingerprint sensor is provided which includes, in addition to a sensor array () in which sensor cells () each with a sense electrode are disposed in the form of an array, a canceling dummy block () having, disposed in an area having no relation with any object under detection, one column of dummy cells () corresponding to each row in the sensor array () and each having a dummy electrode nearly identical in parasitic capacitance to the sense electrode of the sensor cell (). Also, a differentiation output unit () is provided to differentiate between a sensed voltage Vsig sensed at the sensor array () by sensing circuit () and sensed voltage Vdmy sensed at the canceling dummy block (), thereby eliminating the influence of a variation in parasitic capacitance Cp, caused by a production tolerance.

Electrostatic capacity detection apparatus and fingerprint crosscheck apparatus using the same

A capacitance sensor usable as a fingerprint sensor is provided in which a timing controller () provides such a switching control as to first cause a switch (SA) in a sensor cell (-) to turn on to set the potential at a sense electrode to a reference potential and then a switch SB to turn on after the switch (SA) is turned off, whereby charge is stored from the sensor cell (-) into a reference capacitance Cfof a sensing circuit (-), the sensitivity of sensing the capacitance is raised by increasing the number of times the charge storage is repeated and only signal components are extracted by reducing noise components by averaging.

Electrostatic capacitance sensor and fingerprint collator comprising it

When a current charge method is used as a method of detecting capacitance, there poses a problem in which S/N is deteriorated by a dispersion in element characteristics of a cell to be detected and when a voltage charge method is used, since parasitic capacitances of column sense lines are very large and accordingly, there is needed some devise for sampling electric charge charged to the capacitance. There are arranged unit cells having detection electrodes and cell selecting switches connected between the detection electrodes and column sense lines in an array shape, electric charge is charged from detecting circuits to the detection electrodes under constant charge voltage, and thereafter, the column sense lines are imaginarily grounded to thereby detect the capacitances formed between the detection electrodes and the surface of the finger in accordance with recesses and projections of a fingerprint via the column sense lines.

Capacitance detecting apparatus and its inspecting method and fingerprint checking apparatus

A video display device is capable of performing a high-speed switching process and preventing video flicker from occurring. The video display device comprises a plurality of display units including a plurality of unit cells. The unit cell comprises a plurality of dots arranged vertically and horizontally each other and divided into a plurality of dot groups. Each dot is comprised of a plurality of display elements. Further, each unit cell is provided with a plurality of memories, a driving means and a switching means. The memories store the video data to be supplied to display elements. The driving means reads the video data corresponding to said dot groups stored in one of the memory and drives the display elements of said dot groups based on the read video data. The switching means switches alternately and successively the dot groups. The memories store the video data successively in a one-frame unit or a one-field unit. Since video signal written to the memory in a one-frame unit or one-field unit is read therefrom in the one-frame unit or the one-field unit, the dot groups may be switched at highs speed. Thereby, the video flicker maybe prevented from occurring.

Video display device

A video display device is described, which is capable of easily correcting variations in luminous brightness of each display element. When a video display part is comprised of a plurality of display units including a plurality of display elements, respective correction data for correcting the variations in luminous brightness of the individual display elements are supplied to memory means. When the display elements are driven, the correction data is supplied to their corresponding drivers. In doing so, the display elements can be driven in a corrected state of the variations in luminous brightness. Even when a unit cell comprising display elements is replaced by another and brightness level is re-adjusted, new correction data relative to it is updated. Said updated correction data may simply be stored in the same memory means. Thus, the variations in luminous brightness can be easily corrected even when the unit cell is replaced by another and re-adjusted.

The invention provides a parallel to serial data converter wherein the frequency of a basic clock pulse signal to be applied for driving can be reduced to one half with respect to a same data rate and consequently the operation speed required for a circuit in a preceding stage can be reduced, and a bad influence of noise such as, for example, jitters of serial data is eliminated. In the parallel to serial data converter, a clock pulse signal having a frequency f/2 Hz equal to one half the data rate of parallel data which is f bps is used as a basic clock pulse signal, and an inverted pulse signal is produced from the basic clock pulse signal. Then, a rising or falling edge of each pulse of the basic clock pulse signal and a rising or falling edge of each pulse of the inverted pulse signal are detected, and a byte clock pulse signal having a frequency equal to that of the parallel data is produced by logical ORing of such two edge detection outputs and is supplied to a multiplexer.

Parallel to serial data converter

A bipolar RAM apparatus comprises a memory cell array where a plurality of memory cells are connected in parallel between a pair of word lines arranged in N rows decoders are provided for the individual rows of the memory cell array respectively and each serves to select the corresponding row of the memory cells. N drive transistors are for driving, when turned on, the rows of the memory cells individually in response to the respective drive outputs of the decoders. N discharge circuits comprise discharge transistors whose emitters are mutually connected in common between the circuits and whose collectors are connected respectively to the word lines in the individual rows. Coupling capacitors apply the inverted signals of the drive outputs at a nonselected time to the bases of the discharge transistors and resistors apply a fixed bias voltage to the bases of the discharge transistors. A constant current source is connected between the emitter common node of the discharge transistors and a reference potential point. There occurs no noise margin reduction, and the necessity of widening the word line is eliminated. Fast transition to a nonselected state is achievable, and the power consumption can be minimized.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Motoyasu Yano