Analog/multi-level memory for digital imaging

• US 6,594,036 B1
• Filed: 05/28/1998
• Issued: 07/15/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk Corporation (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Chan, John H., Petropoulos, Leo, Wong, Sau C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Grant, II, Jerome
• Assistant Examiner(s): Worku, Negussie
• Application Number:
  US09/086,785
• Time in Patent Office: 1,874 Days
• Field of Search: 358/471, 358/335, 358/334, 358/906, 358/909, 358/44, 348/254, 348/222, 348/264
• US Class Current: 358/471
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 27/005 with non-volatile charge storage, e.g. on floating gate or MNOS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/2112 using still video cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2101/00 Still video cameras
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/765 Interface circuits between an apparatus for recording and another apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/772 the recording apparatus and the television camera being placed in the same enclosure
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/775 between a recording apparatus and a television receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/907 using static stores, e.g. storage tubes or semiconductor memories H04N5/91 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8047 using transform coding

Abstract

A digital imaging system uses an analog/multi-level memory to store image data. The stored analog/multi-level data can then be accessed directly by an analog device or the data can be accessed by an A/D converter for conversion to a digital format. The digital data is then routed to any number of desired digital devices. By using an analog/multi-level memory instead of a digital memory to store image data, problems associated with storing large amounts of digital data are minimized or eliminated, such as loss of information from image compression and high costs of large digital memories and signal processing and compression circuits.

Claims

1. A method of operating an imaging system, comprising:

providing analog image data having a bandwidth from an image sensor;

determining a number of non-volatile memory sections into which the image data will be written based on said bandwidth; and

writing the image data into said number of memory sections in a parallel pipelined manner, wherein said bandwidth requires sampling at a first frequency and said writing involves sampling and writing at a second frequency, and wherein said determining a number is based on relation of the first and the second frequencies.