Patents by Inventor Antonino Caizzone

Antonino Caizzone has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 11864877
    Abstract: The invention relates to a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensing device comprising—a pulsed light source, —at least one pixel to create photo-generated electrons, synchronized with said pulsed light source. It is mainly characterized in that each pixel comprises: —a pinned photodiode (PPD) having two electronic connection nodes, —a sense node (SN), to convert the photo-generated electrons into a voltage, and—a Transfer Gate (TGtransfer) transistor, having its source electronically connected to one electronic connection node of said pinned photodiode (PPD), and being configured to act as a transfer gate (TG) between said pinned photodiode (PPD) and said sense node (SN), allowing the photo-generated electrons to sink when the light is pulsed-off, the photo-generated electrons integration when the light is pulsed-on and the transfer of at least part of the integrated photo-generated electrons to said sense node for a read-out.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 4, 2023
    Date of Patent: January 9, 2024
    Assignee: ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE (EPFL)
    Inventors: Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone, Christian Enz
  • Publication number: 20230157560
    Abstract: The invention relates to a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensing device comprising—a pulsed light source, —at least one pixel to create photo-generated electrons, synchronized with said pulsed light source. It is mainly characterized in that each pixel comprises: —a pinned photodiode (PPD) having two electronic connection nodes, —a sense node (SN), to convert the photo-generated electrons into a voltage, and—a Transfer Gate (TGtransfer) transistor, having its source electronically connected to one electronic connection node of said pinned photodiode (PPD), and being configured to act as a transfer gate (TG) between said pinned photodiode (PPD) and said sense node (SN), allowing the photo-generated electrons to sink when the light is pulsed-off, the photo-generated electrons integration when the light is pulsed-on and the transfer of at least part of the integrated photo-generated electrons to said sense node for a read-out.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 4, 2023
    Publication date: May 25, 2023
    Applicant: ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE (EPFL)
    Inventors: Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone, Christian Enz
  • Patent number: 11612330
    Abstract: The invention relates to a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensing device comprising —a pulsed light source, —at least one pixel to create photo-generated electrons, synchronized with said pulsed light source. It is mainly characterized in that each pixel comprises: —a pinned photodiode (PPD) having two electronic connection nodes, —a sense node (SN), to convert the photo-generated electrons into a voltage, and —a Transfer Gate (TGtransfer) transistor, having its source electronically connected to one electronic connection node of said pinned photodiode (PPD), and being configured to act as a transfer gate (TG) between said pinned photodiode (PPD) and said sense node (SN), allowing the photo-generated electrons to sink when the light is pulsed-off, the photo-generated electrons integration when the light is pulsed-on and the transfer of at least part of the integrated photo-generated electrons to said sense node for a read-out.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 17, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2023
    Assignee: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (EPFL)
    Inventors: Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone, Christian Enz
  • Publication number: 20230008487
    Abstract: A ring for photoplethysmographic sensing performs transmissive PPG and/or reflective PPG. It can enable lower power consumption, higher fidelity, and/or greater versatility to different use cases and users' specificities. The PPG system takes advantage of sensor spatial diversity to enhance the quality and the reliability of the PPG measurements in smart rings, for example. It can also perform user identification.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 1, 2022
    Publication date: January 12, 2023
    Inventors: Antonino Caizzone, Assim Boukhayma, Anthony Barison
  • Publication number: 20220231695
    Abstract: A cyclic analog to digital converter for digitizing an output from a photoplethysmography sensor has a buffer amplifier for setting a voltage of the feedback capacitance. Additionally, digital averaging circuit is preferably provided for averaging the digital output from the cyclic analog to digital converter for the several conversions. Finally, voting logic is additionally provided for declaring the digital bits based on successive comparisons by the one or more comparators.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 14, 2022
    Publication date: July 21, 2022
    Inventors: Assim Boukhayma, Massimiliano Bracco, Antonino Caizzone
  • Publication number: 20220175257
    Abstract: An adaptive processing of the pulsatility signal can improve the pulse wave analysis (PWA) leading to a better blood pressure estimation. The technique is based on transforming the pulsatility signal so that the fiducial points required for the PWA are well-defined.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 18, 2021
    Publication date: June 9, 2022
    Inventors: Serj Haddad, Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone
  • Publication number: 20220120873
    Abstract: A Time-of-flight optical device and a 3D optical detector comprising a CMOS integrated circuit with an array of photosensitive pixels that are, at least in part, interconnected to form macro-pixels (180). Each macro-pixel (180) groups a plurality of individual pixels contributing their photocarriers to a common sense node SN through a plurality of transistors in parallel. Preferably the integrated circuit includes switched capacitor circuits arranged to combine the potential of the sense nodes SN of a plurality of macro-pixels, and/or to perform correlated double samplings in an energy efficient way. Each pixel has now an additional sink gate (194) between the pinned photodetector, PPD, potential well and a positive voltage source. By this additional sink gate (194), the storage well of the PPDs can be emptied without transferring the charge to the sense node.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 15, 2019
    Publication date: April 21, 2022
    Inventors: Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone, Christian Enz
  • Publication number: 20220071500
    Abstract: A sensor employs an adaptive light-to-digital conversion (LDC) system for high background signal applications. The system adapts the LDC resolution and the power consumption depending on the signal to background ratio. This scheme is of particular interest to photoplethysmography (PPG). The system can have a set of light-to-digital converters in which each of the light-to-digital converters includes an array of pixels and an analog to digital converter for digitizing the output from the array of pixels. Switches are then used to connect each of the light-to-digital converters to a power supply to selectively activate each of the light-to-digital converters.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 3, 2021
    Publication date: March 10, 2022
    Inventors: Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone
  • Publication number: 20220061669
    Abstract: A biomedical sensing module and system employs light steering and sensor spatial diversity to enhance the quality and reliability of its measurements. This is particularly relevant to earbuds. Indeed, unlike in a smartwatch, an earbud-based biomedical sensing system suffers from person-to-person physiological differences at the level of the ear canal. This makes it very complicated to engineer a biomedical platform fitting everybody's differences in ear anatomy.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 3, 2021
    Publication date: March 3, 2022
    Inventors: Antonino Caizzone, Assim Boukhayma
  • Publication number: 20220061715
    Abstract: A stacked photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor for oximetry is capable of sensing simultaneously, with optimal area and quantum efficiency, PPG signals using a plurality of emission wavelengths without the need for time division multiplexing.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 25, 2021
    Publication date: March 3, 2022
    Inventors: Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone
  • Publication number: 20200205680
    Abstract: The invention relates to a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensing device comprising —a pulsed light source, —at least one pixel to create photo-generated electrons, synchronized with said pulsed light source. It is mainly characterized in that each pixel comprises: —a pinned photodiode (PPD) having two electronic connection nodes, —a sense node (SN), to convert the photo-generated electrons into a voltage, and —a Transfer Gate (TGtransfer) transistor, having its source electronically connected to one electronic connection node of said pinned photodiode (PPD), and being configured to act as a transfer gate (TG) between said pinned photodiode (PPD) and said sense node (SN), allowing the photo-generated electrons to sink when the light is pulsed-off, the photo-generated electrons integration when the light is pulsed-on and the transfer of at least part of the integrated photo-generated electrons to said sense node for a read-out.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 17, 2018
    Publication date: July 2, 2020
    Inventors: Assim Boukhayma, Antonino Caizzone, Christian Enz