US 8004026

Patent Overview — US 8004026 B2

Title: Solid-state imaging device
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8004026/en

Bibliographic data available in the supplied text

• Patent number: US 8004026 B2
• Application number: US 12/720,549; filed 2010-03-09
• Publication date: 2011-08-23
• Priority date listed as 2003-03-07 (described as an assumption, not a legal conclusion)
• Inventors: Makoto Inagaki, Yoshiyuki Matsunaga
• Original assignee: Panasonic Corp.; current assignee listed as Collabo Innovations Inc
• Legal status listed as "Expired - Lifetime"; anticipated expiration 2024-01-09
• Other version: US 2010/0165162 A1

Purpose (per supplied text)
The invention "relates to a MOS-type solid-state imaging device to be used for various types of equipment, such as home video cameras, digital still cameras, or cameras incorporated in cellular phones."

Plain-language scope (from the supplied excerpt)
The excerpt describes a solid-state image sensor with photosensitive cells (pixels) arranged in a matrix. Each cell includes a photodiode, a transfer gate, a floating diffusion layer section, an amplifier transistor, a reset transistor, and an address transistor. A vertical shift register controls address and reset transistors to reset the floating diffusion sections, after which the amplifier transistor and a load transistor form a source follower that outputs a noise voltage on a vertical signal line independent of stored signal charge. The transfer gate then turns on, moving signal charge from the photodiode into the floating diffusion section so a signal voltage appears. A noise suppression circuit comprising clamp capacitors, clamp transistors, sample/hold transistors, and sample/hold capacitors finds the difference between the signal output and the noise output. Noise is described as mainly threshold-voltage variation at the amplifier transistor and kTC thermal noise at the reset transistor.

What the excerpt does not establish
The supplied text is explicitly an excerpt with omitted content ("[Excerpt only; consult the source for omitted text.]"), so the complete claim set, full written description, and figures are not available here. The excerpt also does not establish the actual claims' scope, the identity or content of any prior art references, litigation, ownership-transfer details, or validity. The assignee and legal-status entries are stated by the source to be assumptions, not legal conclusions.