Abstract: Disclosed is a pixel element comprising a semiconductor substrate, a primary charge-collection node, a peripheral node, a modulating node, a circuitry and a backside conductive layer. The semiconductor substrate is configured to convert a flux of photons to first and second conductivity-type mobile charges. The peripheral node at least partially surrounds the primary charge-collection node, which at least partially surrounds the modulating node. The circuitry is used to connect and disconnect a reset voltage to/from the primary charge-collection node, provide a peripheral node voltage to the peripheral node, and measure an amount of the first conductivity-type mobile charges collected by the primary charge-collection node. The modulating node is electrically connected to a modulating voltage source, which is independent of the peripheral node voltage.

Abstract: Disclosed is a pixel element comprising a semiconductor substrate, a primary charge-collection node, a peripheral node, a modulating node, a circuitry and a backside conductive layer. The semi-conductor substrate is configured to convert a flux of photons to first and second conductivity-type mobile charges. The peripheral node at least partially surrounds the primary charge-collection node, which at least partially surrounds the modulating node. The circuitry is used to connect and disconnect a reset voltage to/from the primary charge-collection node, provide a peripheral node voltage to the peripheral node, and measure an amount of the first conductivity-type mobile charges collected by the primary charge- collection node. The modulating node is electrically connected to a modulating voltage source, which is independent of the peripheral node voltage.

Abstract: The present invention relates to differential, locally updating Viterbi decoder characterized in that it contains connection management block (802, 810, 812) which enables decoding a bit per cycle by trellis diagram uniting (810) and distributing procedure (812). Furthermore, the invention is also characterized in that it contains a path metric update block, in which the monotonical growth of state metrics is avoided by a bounding procedure in a path metric update (808).