ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,289,553, issued on April 29, was assigned to OmniVision Technologies Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).
"Photo-voltaic phototransistor in forward bias" was invented by Yoshiyuki Matsunaga (Kyoto, Japan), Keiji Mabuchi (Cupertino, Calif.) and Lindsay Alexander Grant (Campbell, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A pixel circuit includes: a phototransistor configured to receive, by one region of a source and a drain, inflow of photo-carriers generated by light entering a substrate, and configured to output a voltage signal from the one region; and a blocking layer provided on another region of the drain and the source and on a side of a channel ...