Image sensor and image sensor module
View Patent ↗An image sensor is provided in a semiconductor chip and includes an image capturing circuit configured to output an image signal representing an image, a plurality of output terminals that are electrically connected to the image capturing circuit, and a switching circuit electrically connected between the image capturing circuit and the plurality of output terminals, the switching circuit being controlled to output the image signal output from the image capturing circuit through one of the output terminals, based on a mode indication signal indicating an output mode of the image sensor.
1 . An image sensor provided in a semiconductor chip, comprising:
an image capturing circuit configured to output an image signal representing an image according to a timing signal that has been selected, based on an external control signal, from a first timing signal and a second timing signal;
a plurality of output terminals that are electrically connected to the image capturing circuit;
a switching circuit electrically connected between the image capturing circuit and the plurality of output terminals, the switching circuit being controlled to output the image signal output from the image capturing circuit through one of the output terminals, based on a mode indication signal indicating an output mode of the image sensor, wherein the switching circuit has a plurality of semiconductor switches, each of which has one end electrically connected to the image capturing circuit and the other end electrically connected to a corresponding one of the output terminals; and
a switch control circuit configured to control the plurality of semiconductor switches to be on or off, based on the mode indication signal, wherein
the image capturing circuit and the switch control circuit share one or more external control signals for controlling the image capturing circuit, and
the external control signals include a master clock, a leading chip determination signal, and the first and second timing signals.
2 . The image sensor according to claim 1 , wherein
the plurality of semiconductor switches include a first semiconductor switch and a second semiconductor switch, and
when the mode indication signal is at a first level, the first semiconductor switch is turned on and the second semiconductor switch is turned off, and when the mode indication signal is at a second level, the first semiconductor switch is turned off and the second semiconductor switch is turned on.
3 . An image sensor module comprising a plurality of image sensors, wherein each of the image sensors is an image sensor according to claim 1 .
4 . The image sensor module according to claim 3 , wherein
when the mode indication signal indicates a serial output mode, image signals of the image sensors are output in series, and when the mode indication signal indicates a parallel output mode, image signals of at least two image sensors among the image sensors are output in parallel.
5 . The image sensor module according to claim 4 , wherein
the output terminals of each of the image sensors include a first output terminal and a second output terminal, and each of the image sensors is assigned to a first image sensor group or a second image sensor group, and
the first output terminals of the image sensors of the first and second image sensor groups are connected to each other to form a first output channel, and the second output terminals of the first image sensor group are connected to each other and the second output terminals of the second image sensor group are connected to each other to form second and third output channels, respectively.
6 . The image sensor module according to claim 5 , wherein
when the mode indication signal indicates the serial output mode, the image signals of the image sensors of the first and second image sensor groups are output in series to the first output channel.
7 . The image sensor module according to claim 5 , wherein
when the mode indication signal indicates the parallel output mode, the image signals of the image sensors of the first image sensor group and the image signals of the image sensors of the second image sensor group are respectively output to the second and third output channels in parallel.
8 . The image sensor module according to claim 5 , wherein
the first to third output channels are connected to an analog front end having an A/D converter configured to convert the image signal into a digital signal.
9 . The image sensor module according to claim 3 , wherein
the output terminals are connected to an analog front end having an A/D converter configured to convert the image signal into a digital signal, and
the analog front end is configured to supply the mode indication signal, the master clock, the leading chip determination signal, and the first timing signal to the image sensor module.
10 . A method of outputting image signals from a plurality of image sensors, each of which is an image sensor according to claim 1 , said method comprising:
controlling the image capturing circuit to output the image signal according to the selected timing signal; and
controlling the switching circuit to output the image signal output from the image capturing circuit through one of the output terminals, based on the mode indication signal.
11 . The method according to claim 10 , wherein
when the mode indication signal indicates the serial output mode, the image signals of all of the image sensors are output in series to a common output channel.
12 . The method according to claim 10 , wherein
when the mode indication signal indicates the parallel output mode, the image signals of a first group of the image sensors and the image signals of a second group of the image sensors are respectively output to first and second output channels in parallel.