Fraunhofer-gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forschung E.v.

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Thomas Bellingrath

Michael Hackner

A circuit for processing an analog signal having a time sequence of discrete signal levels, each of which lies in a time interval and represents an information-bearing segment of the interval while the rest of the time interval is a non-information-bearing segment, comprises a transistor in emitter-follower or source-follower configuration, a high emitter or source resistance or, instead, a high-ohm constant current source, and a device for applying a voltage supply, as well as a switch which is connected between the emitter and a reference potential to prevent a current from flowing via the high-ohm resistance or the high-ohm voltage source for charge reversal of an output capacitance of the circuit in one direction, whereas for charge reversal in the other direction the dynamic current boosting effect of the transistor is exploited. This results in a fast emitter-follower or source-follower circuit which is particularly suitable as the output stage for image sensors.

Circuit for processing a time-discrete analog signal and image sensor

This invention relates to a coding circuit for generating a swap tolerant code. The coding circuit comprises a first and second input (), an odd parity pair detector (), a memory (), and an output circuit (). Each of the first and second inputs () receive a stream of serial data. The odd parity pair detector () outputs an odd parity pair signal if the bits received at said first and second inputs () have different logical values and therefore constitute an odd parity pair. The memory () stores information on a previous odd parity pair. The output circuit outputs the previous odd parity pair, if said first input () provides a logical 1 and said second input () provides a logical 0. The output circuit outputs the inverted previous odd parity pair, if said first input () provides a logical 0 and said second input () provides a logical 1. The invention further provides a corresponding decoding circuit, and coding and decoding methods. Further the invention relates to a coding circuit for inversion tolerant coding, a corresponding decoding circuit and coding and decoding methods.

Swap tolerant coding and decoding circuits and methods

A circuit for processing an analog signal having a time sequence of discrete signal levels, each of which lies in a time interval and represents an information-bearing segment of the interval while the rest of the time interval is a non-information-bearing segment, comprises a transistor () in emitter-follower or source-follower configuration, a high emitter or source resistance or, instead, a high-ohm constant current source (), and a device () for applying a voltage supply, as well as a switch () which is connected between the emitter and a reference potential () to prevent a current from flowing via the high-ohm resistance or the high-ohm voltage source () for charge reversal of an output capacitance () of the circuit in one direction, whereas for charge reversal in the other direction the dynamic current boosting effect of the transistor () is exploited. This results in a fast emitter-follower or source-follower circuit which is particularly suitable as the output stage for image sensors.

Growing community of inventors

Nuremberg, Germany

Thomas Bellingrath