Image pickup device and image processing system

• US 20070076105A1
• Filed: 09/27/2006
• Published: 04/05/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions Co., Ltd. (Winbond Electronics Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Inokuma, Kazuyuki
• Granted Patent: US 7,952,624 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/273
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/00 Optical viewing arrangements; Real-time viewing arrangements for drivers or passengers using optical image capturing systems, e.g. cameras or video systems specially adapted for use in or on vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 1/23 with a predetermined field of view
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 11/04 Mounting of cameras operative during drive; Arrangement of controls thereof relative to the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 2300/105 using multiple cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 27/14647 Multicolour imagers having a stacked pixel-element structure, e.g. npn, npnpn or MQW elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/00 Circuitry of solid-state image sensors [SSIS]; Control thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/11 Arrangement of colour filter arrays [CFA]; Filter mosaics

Abstract

In a multilayer film filter formed of inorganic dielectric materials, a spacer layer has different thicknesses to form a plurality of color-transmissive filter elements having multiple different spectral characteristics on an image sensor.

Claims

1. An image pickup device including an image sensor in which a plurality of unit pixels are arrayed on a chip, wherein

the image sensor comprises:

photoelectric conversion elements for converting incident light to electricity for each of the unit pixels; and

a filter, disposed above the photoelectric conversion elements, for selectively transmitting only a particular wavelength band of the incident light to separate a color component from the incident light, and

the filter is a multilayer film filter formed of inorganic materials and configured so that the half width of the particular wavelength band to be selectively transmitted is narrower than 100 nm.

2. The image pickup device of claim 1, wherein the filter comprises a plurality of filter elements of at least four types having different characteristics to cover the human visible wavelength range from 400 nm to 700 nm.

3. The image pickup device of claim 2, wherein the plurality of filter elements of at least four types are arrayed on the image sensor so that out of the plurality of filter elements, green transmissive filter elements for selectively transmitting the greenest color are staggered from row to row and another type of filter elements for selectively transmitting the second greenest color are disposed in positions of the filter array which are created by the staggered arrangement of the green transmissive filter elements and where the green transmissive filter elements are sparse.

4. An image processing system comprising:

an image sensor in which a plurality of unit pixels are arrayed on a chip, said image sensor comprising a filter for separating incident light into at least four color components;

a conversion section for converting signals corresponding to the at least four color components separated by the image sensor to digital signals, respectively; and

an image processing section for processing the signals output from the conversion section to produce color signals.

5. The image processing system of claim 4, wherein the image processing section is configured to produce color signals over the entire human visible wavelength range from 400 nm to 700 nm based on information about a color in a narrower range than the human visible wavelength range.

6. The image processing system of claim 5, wherein the image processing section is configured to estimate colors of an object under white lighting based on information about a plurality of colors in a narrower range than the human visible wavelength range from 400 nm to 700 nm and produce color signals based on the estimation results.

7. The image processing system of claim 6, wherein

the image processing section includes a pattern table showing the relation between color information on an object under low color rendering lighting and color information on the same object under white lighting, and

the image processing section is configured to estimate color information of the object under white lighting from the object under low color rendering lighting based on the pattern table.

8. The image processing system of claim 4, wherein the image processing section is formed of a semiconductor LSI chip.