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:
Dec. 26, 2006
Filed:
Jan. 29, 2001
Applicant:
Tina Y Liu, Tarzana, CA (US);
Inventor:
Tina Y Liu, Tarzana, CA (US);
Assignee:
Valley Oak Semiconductor, Westlake Village, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H04N 3/14 (2006.01); H04N 5/335 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
Abstract
An electronic imaging chip containing an array of photodiodes includes a multiplexed column buffer. The multiplexed column buffer serves a plurality of columns in the photodiode array. By multiplexing active amplifier elements, such as the differential gain amplifiers and the bus driver amplifiers, a wider area than one column width is available on the semiconductor chip for layout of the column buffer. In the disclosed embodiment, 4 columns share a common multiplexed column buffer. The area available for layout of the multiplexed column buffer is 4 times as wide as compared to that for a non-multiplexed column buffer.