ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,538,594, issued on Jan. 27, was assigned to STMicroelectronics (Crolles 2) SAS (Crolles, France).
"Image and depth pixel" was invented by Francois Roy (Seyssins, France).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sensor includes pixels supported by a substrate doped with a first conductivity type. Each pixel includes a portion of the substrate delimited by a vertical insulation structure with an image sensing assembly and a depth sensing assembly. The image sensing assembly includes a first region of the substrate more heavily doped with the first conductivity type and a first vertical transfer gate completely laterally surrounding the first region...