FOUR-CHANNEL COLOR FILTER ARRAY PATTERN

• US 20100302423A1
• Filed: 05/27/2009
• Published: 12/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Omnivision Technologies Incorporated (Will Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Shanghai)
• Original Assignee: Omnivision Technologies Incorporated (Will Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Shanghai)
• Inventors: Pillman, Bruce H., Kumar, Mrityunjay, Adams, James E. JR., Hamilton, James A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,203,633 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/302
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/843 Demosaicing, e.g. interpolating colour pixel values
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/133 including elements passing panchromatic light, e.g. filters passing white light
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/135 based on four or more different wavelength filter elements

Abstract

An image sensor for capturing a color image comprising a two dimensional array of light-sensitive pixels including panchromatic pixels and color pixels having at least two different color responses, the pixels being arranged in a repeating pattern having a square minimal repeating unit having at least three rows and three columns, the color pixels being arranged along one of the diagonals of the minimal repeating unit, and all other pixels being panchromatic pixels.

Claims

1. An image sensor for capturing a color image comprising a two dimensional array of light-sensitive pixels including panchromatic pixels and color pixels having at least two different color responses, the pixels being arranged in a repeating pattern having a square minimal repeating unit having at least three rows and three columns, the color pixels being arranged along one of the diagonals of the minimal repeating unit, and all other pixels being panchromatic pixels.

2. The image sensor of claim 1 wherein the color pixels are red, green and blue pixels.

3. The image sensor of claim 1 wherein the color pixels are cyan, magenta and yellow pixels.

4. The image sensor of claim 1 wherein the minimal repeating unit has three rows and three columns, and wherein one of the diagonals of the minimal repeating unit has one red pixel, one green pixel and one blue pixel.

5. The image sensor of claim 1 wherein the minimal repeating unit has four rows and four columns, and wherein one of the diagonals of the minimal repeating unit has one red pixel, two green pixels and one blue pixel.

6. The image sensor of claim 5 wherein the two green pixels are separated by either a red pixel or a blue pixel.

7. The image sensor of claim 1 wherein the positions of the color pixels along the diagonal are arranged to minimize the maximum distance between color pixels of the same color.

8. The image sensor of claim 1 wherein there are no panchromatic pixels on the diagonals of the minimal repeating unit that includes color pixels.