Time detection circuit, ad converter, and solid state image pickup device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8994575-B2
Application number	US-201313759383-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 5, 2013
Priority date	Aug 6, 2010
Publication date	Mar 31, 2015
Grant date	Mar 31, 2015

Abstract

A time detection circuit may include: a delay unit configured to have a plurality of delay units, each of which delays and outputs an input signal, and start an operation at a first timing relating to an input of a first pulse; a latch unit configured to latch logic states of the plurality of delay units; a count unit configured to perform a count operation based on a clock output from one of the plurality of delay units; a count latch unit configured to latch a state of the count unit; and a latch control unit configured to enable the latch unit at a second timing relating to an input of a second pulse and cause the latch unit and the count latch unit to execute a latch at a third timing at which a predetermined time has elapsed from the second timing.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An analog-to-digital (AD) converter comprising:
a time detection circuit;
a reference signal generation unit configured to generate a reference signal; and
a calculation unit configured to generate a digital signal based on logic states latched in a latch unit and a state latched by a count latch unit,
wherein the time detection circuit comprises:
a delay unit configured to have a plurality of delay units, each of which delays and outputs an input sig…

Assignees

• Olympus Corp

Inventors

• Hagihara Yoshio

Classifications

• H04N25/767

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N25/78

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10F39/80

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G04F10/005 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04N5/378

  Electricity · mapped topic