Patents by Inventor Jonas Felber
Jonas Felber 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).
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Patent number: 9698196Abstract: A demodulation pixel improves the charge transport speed and sensitivity by exploiting two effects of charge transport in silicon in order to achieve the before-mentioned optimization. The first one is a transport method based on the CCD gate principle. However, this is not limited to CCD technology, but can be realized also in CMOS technology. The charge transport in a surface or even a buried channel close to the surface is highly efficient in terms of speed, sensitivity and low trapping noise. In addition, by activating a majority carrier current flowing through the substrate, another drift field is generated below the depleted CCD channel. This drift field is located deeply in the substrate, acting as an efficient separator for deeply photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Thus, another large amount of minority carriers is transported to the diffusion nodes at high speed and detected.Type: GrantFiled: August 16, 2010Date of Patent: July 4, 2017Assignee: Heptagon Micro Optics Pte. Ltd.Inventors: Bernhard Buettgen, Jonas Felber, Michael Lehmann, Thierry Oggier
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Patent number: 9076709Abstract: The presented readout structure provides charge transport based readout of a photosensitive device with a minimum number of transport gates. The structure uses the given charge storage buckets of the photosensitive device, separated by a minimum sized barrier-gate, to transport the charge out of the pixel field. This new readout schema allows for a fast readout speed based on a 2 phase transport chain and increases the pixel's optical fill factor by significantly reducing the transport gate size compared to state-of-the-art pixels using a 3 or 4 phase CCD readout chain. This readout structure can be exploited for standard photo-detecting elements such as e.g. pinned photo-diodes or any enhanced pixel structure that has additional intelligence incorporated as well. Typical applications are 2D- or 3D-imaging.Type: GrantFiled: May 5, 2010Date of Patent: July 7, 2015Assignee: MESA Imaging AGInventors: Jonas Felber, Michael Lehmann, Bernhard Buettgen
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Patent number: 9000349Abstract: An increased sense node capacitance, mainly for 3D time-of-flight (TOF) applications, includes a storage structure that combines the advantages of gate and diffusion capacitance in order to improve the overall capacitance. The storage structure provides higher capacitance per unit area and accordingly a better fill-factor/sensitivity of the pixel; improved noise behaviour because of the use of gate capacitances, better protection against interacting signals and thus better signal quality.Type: GrantFiled: July 16, 2010Date of Patent: April 7, 2015Assignee: MESA Imaging AGInventors: Michael Lehmann, Bernhard Buettgen, Jonas Felber
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Patent number: 8754939Abstract: A demodulation structure for a n-tap pixel, mainly for 3D time-of-flight (TOF) applications uses a 2-stage switch structure for demodulating a modulated electromagnetic wave. An almost arbitrary number of storage sites per pixel can be implemented enabling an almost arbitrary number of samplings captured during one exposure. It also provides the option to demodulate and integrate different phasing samples according to the different modulation frequencies within the same exposure.Type: GrantFiled: November 9, 2010Date of Patent: June 17, 2014Assignee: MESA imaging AGInventors: Thierry Oggier, Michael Lehmann, Bernhard Buettgen, Jonas Felber
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Publication number: 20110273561Abstract: A demodulation structure for a n-tap pixel, mainly for 3D time-of-flight (TOF) applications uses a 2-stage switch structure for demodulating a modulated electromagnetic wave. An almost arbitrary number of storage sites per pixel can be implemented enabling an almost arbitrary number of samplings captured during one exposure. It also provides the option to demodulate and integrate different phasing samples according to the different modulation frequencies within the same exposure.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 9, 2010Publication date: November 10, 2011Applicant: MESA IMAGING AGInventors: Thierry Oggier, Michael Lehmann, Bernhard Buettgen, Jonas Felber
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Publication number: 20110114821Abstract: The presented readout structure provides charge transport based readout of a photosensitive device with a minimum number of transport gates. The structure uses the given charge storage buckets of the photosensitive device, separated by a minimum sized barrier-gate, to transport the charge out of the pixel field. This new readout schema allows for a fast readout speed based on a 2 phase transport chain and increases the pixel's optical fill factor by significantly reducing the transport gate size compared to state-of-the-art pixels using a 3 or 4 phase CCD readout chain. This readout structure can be exploited for standard photo-detecting elements such as e.g. pinned photo-diodes or any enhanced pixel structure that has additional intelligence incorporated as well. Typical applications are 2D- or 3D-imaging.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 5, 2010Publication date: May 19, 2011Applicant: MESA Imaging AGInventors: Jonas Felber, Michael Lehmann, Berhard Buettgen
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Publication number: 20110089471Abstract: A demodulation pixel improves the charge transport speed and sensitivity by exploiting two effects of charge transport in silicon in order to achieve the before-mentioned optimization. The first one is a transport method based on the CCD gate principle. However, this is not limited to CCD technology, but can be realized also in CMOS technology. The charge transport in a surface or even a buried channel close to the surface is highly efficient in terms of speed, sensitivity and low trapping noise. In addition, by activating a majority carrier current flowing through the substrate, another drift field is generated below the depleted CCD channel. This drift field is located deeply in the substrate, acting as an efficient separator for deeply photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Thus, another large amount of minority carriers is transported to the diffusion nodes at high speed and detected.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 16, 2010Publication date: April 21, 2011Applicant: MESA IMAGING AGInventors: Bernhard Buettgen, Jonas Felber, Michael Lehmann, Thierry Oggier
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Publication number: 20100308209Abstract: A method and system enable the subtraction of charge carrier packages in the low-noise charge domain, which is particularly interesting for the operation of demodulation pixels when high background light signals are present. The method comprises the following steps: demodulation of an optical signal and integration of the photo-generated charge carriers; charge transfer to an external capacitance. The second step means a recombination of electrons and holes in the charge domain and an influencing of the opposite charge carriers on the second plate of the capacitance. This approach allows for low-noise subtraction of charge packages in the charge domain and, at the same time, for creating pixels with much higher fill factors because the capacitances can be optimized for storing just the differential parts, without the DC component.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 9, 2010Publication date: December 9, 2010Applicant: MESA IMAGING AGInventors: Berhard Buettgen, Michael Lehmann, Jonas Felber
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Publication number: 20090224139Abstract: A pixel based on a pinned-photodiode structure that creates a lateral electric drift field. The combination of the photodiode with adjacent CCD gates enables the utilization of the drift field device in applications such as 3-D imaging. Compared with recently used demodulation devices in CCD or CMOS technology, the new pinned-photodiode based drift field pixel has its advantages in its wide independence of the quantum efficiency on the optical wavelength, its high optical sensitivity, the opportunity of easily creating arbitrary potential distributions in the semiconductor, the straight-forward routing capabilities and the generation of perfectly linear potential distributions in the semiconductor.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 4, 2009Publication date: September 10, 2009Applicant: MESA Imaging AGInventors: Bernhard Buettgen, Michael Lehmann, Jonas Felber