DEVICE AND METHOD FOR COMPENSATING DARK LEVEL IN IMAGE SENSOR USING DARK PIXEL SENSOR METRIC

摘要

PURPOSE: A device and method for compensating a dark level in an image sensor using dark pixel sensor metric are provided to compensate dark level offset to improve a black signal of an image. CONSTITUTION: A CMOS image sensor includes a CMOS pixel sensor array(110) and a dark level compensation circuit(130). The CMOS pixel sensor array has a plurality of CMOS pixel sensor rows(111) each of which includes at least one dark pixel sensor(112,114). The dark level compensation circuit controls an offset applied to an image signal generated according to the CMOS pixel sensors of the CMOS pixel array in response to aggregate dark level metric obtained from a dark pixel image generated by the dark pixel sensors. The dark level compensation circuit decides an average dark level from the dark pixel image signals and controls the offset applied to the image signal in response to the decided average dark level.