A couple of sensor patent applications published

Canon had published a series of patent applications, mostly dealing with low level improvements to sensors.

As we have mentioned before, the next steps for the traditional CMOS sensor, isn't big revolutionary changes, but little changes to each remove sources of noise or inaccuracies in conversion between analog and digital signals.

Japan Patent Application 2018-019314

This patent deals with the problem of when  you share A/D and related circuitry across multiple pixels (a common strategy) your time to read the entire sensor increases because you have to reach each of those pixels one at a time because  you are switching between Pixel A to Pixel B to Pixel C.

This patent application is for a method of keeping both the optimization of circuits and a high speed of reading the sensor possible.

From reading the patents, it's always a delicate balance between speed, accuracy, and complexity of the sensor itself.

Japan Patent Application 2018-019287

This patent application looks to solve the ongoing problem of increasing the frames per second with the increase of pixels that the industry faces on a ongoing basis.  It looks to increase the overall speed of digital value acquisition from the analog to digital convertor