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:
Sep. 12, 2017
Filed:
May. 31, 2016
Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Tingjun Xu, San Jose, CA (US);
Jeffrey Nathan Gleason, San Francisco, CA (US);
Zhenbin Ge, Campbell, CA (US);
Linsen Bie, Fremont, CA (US);
Ligang Wang, San Jose, CA (US);
Wookyung Bae, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Sunggu Kang, San Jose, CA (US);
APPLE INC., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
A portable electronic device has a device housing, and an electronic camera module in the device housing. The module has a focusing lens to focus light from a scene, an imaging sensor to receive the focused light, and an electro-optic variable aperture to allow different amounts of the light from the scene to reach the imaging sensor. The electro-optic variable aperture may include a first aperture stack placed on a transparent substrate and a second aperture stack placed on the first aperture stack. The first aperture stack defines a first aperture and the second aperture stack defines a second aperture that is larger than the first aperture. Each aperture stack includes a transparent conductive oxide layer that is common with the adjacent aperture stack. Alternatively the electro-optic variable aperture may include an aperture stack that has two transparent conductive oxide layer layers, where one layer is in the form of concentric annuli.