IMAGING SYSTEM AND SEMICONDUCTOR INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

• US 20100066867A1
• Filed: 11/18/2008
• Published: 03/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/26/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: YOSHIKAWA, Hiroki
• Application Number:
  US12/525,629
• Publication Number:
  US 20100066867A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/241
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/000095 for image enhancement
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/00036 Means for power saving, e.g. sleeping mode
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/041 Capsule endoscopes for imaging
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0209 adapted for power saving
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/617 for reducing electromagnetic interference, e.g. clocking noise
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/63 applied to dark current

Abstract

An imaging system includes a solid-state imaging device (101) configured to convert light into an electrical signal to output a captured-image signal, an AFE unit (107) configured to process the captured-image signal from the solid-state imaging device, an image acquiring unit (110) configured to acquire an image having a specific color from the AFE unit (107), a noise detector (112) configured to detect noise of the specific-color image acquired by the image acquiring unit (110), and an AFE power-down controller (111) configured to control timing of power supply to the AFE unit (107) during a horizontal or vertical blanking period based on an amount of the noise detected by the noise detector.

Claims

1. An imaging system comprising:

a solid-state imaging device configured to convert light into an electrical signal to output a captured-image signal;

an analog front-end (AFE) unit configured to process the captured-image signal from the solid-state imaging device;

an image acquiring unit configured to acquire an image having a specific color from the AFE unit;

a noise detector configured to detect noise of the specific-color image acquired by the image acquiring unit; and

an AFE power-down controller configured to control timing of power supply to the AFE unit during a horizontal or vertical blanking period based on an amount of the noise detected by the noise detector.

2. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein

the image acquiring unit can acquire the specific-color image in any frame of the captured-image signal from the solid-state imaging device, and

the image acquiring unit adjusts a frequency of acquiring the specific-color image, depending on the amount of the noise detected by the noise detector.

3. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein

the noise detector determines the amount of the noise based on an average value of luminance of the specific-color image acquired by the image acquiring unit.

4. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein

the noise detector determines the amount of the noise based on a variance value of luminance of the specific-color image acquired by the image acquiring unit.

5. The imaging system of claim 1, wherein

the noise detector detects noise from a predetermined horizontal line.

6. The imaging system of claim 1, further comprising:

a vertical streak correction switching unit configured to switch on/off a process (vertical streak correction process) of removing noise from the captured-image signal output from the solid-state imaging device by vertical streak correction.

7. The imaging system of claim 6, wherein

the vertical streak correction switching unit switches on the vertical streak correction process while the timing of power supply is being adjusted by the AFE power-down controller.

8. The imaging system of claim 6, wherein

the vertical streak correction switching unit switches on the vertical streak correction process when the timing adjustment by the AFE power-down controller has reached a limit.

9. A semiconductor integrated circuit comprising:

an analog front-end (AFE) unit configured to process a captured-image signal from a solid-state imaging device;

an image acquiring unit configured to acquire an image having a specific color from the AFE unit;

a noise detector configured to detect noise of the specific-color image acquired by the image acquiring unit; and

an AFE power-down controller configured to control timing of power supply to the AFE unit during a horizontal or vertical blanking period based on an amount of the noise detected by the noise detector.