Solid-state image pickup device with plurality of converters

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9106859-B2
Application number	US-201213661724-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 26, 2012
Priority date	Nov 4, 2011
Publication date	Aug 11, 2015
Grant date	Aug 11, 2015

Abstract

A solid-state image pickup device includes a column ADC realizing higher precision and higher-speed conversion. Converters converts a signal of each pixels output via a corresponding vertical read line to a digital value by sequentially executing first to N-th (N: integer of three or larger) conversion stages. In the first to (N−1)th conversion stages, each converter determines a value of upper bits including the most significant bit of a digital value by comparing the voltage at a retention stage with a reference voltage while changing the voltage at a retention node. In the N-th conversion stage, each converter determines a value of remaining bits to the least significant bit by comparing the voltage at the retention node with the reference voltage while continuously changing the voltage at the retention node in a range of the voltage step in the (N−1)th conversion stage or a range exceeding the range.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A solid-state image pickup device comprising:
an imaging unit in which a plurality of pixels each including a photoelectric conversion element for converting a light signal to an electric signal are disposed in a matrix, and signals of pixels in a selected row are output via a plurality of vertical read lines disposed for columns while sequentially scanning the pixels row by row; and
a plurality of converters provided in correspondence with the vertical re…

Assignees

• Renesas Electronics Corp

Inventors

• Kizuna Shunsuke
• Dosaka Katsumi
• Utsunomiya Hiroto

Classifications

• H04N25/78 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04N5/378 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic