ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,375,831, issued on July 29, was assigned to OmniVision Technologies Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

"Image sensor having pixels in linear mode and photovoltaic mode" was invented by Yoshiyuki Matsunaga (Kyoto, Japan), Keiji Mabuchi (Cupertino, Calif.) and Lindsay Grant (Campbell, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In a case where a photodiode is in a saturated state, the photodiode can be transited from the saturated state to an unsaturated state during a period when a knee pulse is supplied from a knee pulse supplying unit. The knee pulse supplying unit preferably supplies the knee pulse a plurality of times during one frame period."

Th...