The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 27, 2001
Filed:
May. 20, 1999
Hubert Kuderer, Waldbronn, DE;
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
Spectrometers often use a so called charge balance photodiode array. This type of photodiode array uses parallel AID conversion in each channel of said photodiode array, whereby a charge provided by a photocurrent is accumulated at an integrator circuit, and a dumping circuit removes this charge by well defined charge packets to keep the system in balance. In order to expand the field of application of these photodiode arrays, a storage circuit is inserted to buffer a possible charge overflow caused by a light beam of high intensity, as often occurs when flash light lamps are used in the spectrometers. The storage circuit includes a capacitor, and a current limiter which linearly conducts the photocurrent below a process limit defined by the saturation limit of the dumping circuitry and which, above this limit, converts a photocurrent pulse into a constant overflow current having a duration corresponding to the amplitude of the photocurrent pulse.