Appeal No. 2004-1487
Application No. 09/085,519
circuit 310 formed according to the present invention is
illustrated in Figure 2. An active cell array 312 includes a
number of pixels organized into rows and columns. The active
cell array 312 includes at least one "reference row." The
reference row may be placed at the top or bottom of the active
array. The reference row is created by using a light shield or
black layer to cover the cells of the reference row from light.
Thus, the only signal that should be generated from the sensors
of the reference row is a noise or dark signal. During the
readout process, the exposure time of the reference row is the
same as the rest of the rows of the active cell array. See page
5 of Appellant's specification. Signals from the pixels in cell
array 312 are read out through a series of reading lines 314 by
analog signal processing circuitry 316. Analog signal processing
circuitry 316 sends signals through lines 318 to an analog-to-
digital converter 322. Analog-to-digital converter 322 sends
digital signals representing the processed signals through lines
324 to a fixed pattern noise storage circuitry 326 and to a fixed
pattern noise canceling processor 330. See page 5 of Appellant's
specification. Once the signals from the reference row are
stored in the fixed pattern noise storage area 326, the remaining
rows of the array may be processed. As each additional row of
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