Solid-state image pickup apparatus
AssigneesKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation
InventorMinoru Kashiwagi
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Abstract
A solid-state image pickup apparatus includes a light receiving element, a reading gate, a former-stage storage unit, a latter-stage storage unit, a floating diffusion, an amplification transistor, a reset transistor, and an address transistor. The former-stage storage unit stores a signal charge read from the light receiving element. The latter-stage storage unit stores the signal charge transported from the former-stage storage unit. The floating diffusion converts the signal charge transferred from the latter-stage storage unit into a signal voltage.
Claims16
A solid-state image pickup apparatus including:
- at least one light receiving element including a color filter different in color in a sub scanning direction, and configured to photoelectrically convert incident light;
- a reading gate configured to read a signal charge from the light receiving element;
- a former-stage storage unit configured to store the signal charge read from the light receiving element;
- a latter-stage storage unit configured to store the signal charge transported from the former-stage storage unit;
- a floating diffusion configured to convert the signal charge transferred from the latter-stage storage unit into a signal voltage;
- an amplification transistor configured to generate a pixel signal corresponding to the signal voltage;
- a reset transistor configured to reset a gate voltage of the amplification transistor to a reference voltage;
- and
- an address transistor configured to output the pixel signal;
- and
- a control circuit configured to perform control so that the former-stage storage unit stores the signal charge in a storage cycle determined corresponding to a color of the color filter.
A solid-state image pickup apparatus including
- a first color pixel and a second color pixel, wherein
- the first color pixel includes:
- a first former-stage storage unit configured to store a first signal charge obtained by photoelectric conversion at a first exposure cycle and read from at least one first light receiving element including a color filter different in color in a sub scanning direction;
- a first latter-stage storage unit to which the first signal charge is transported from the first former-stage storage unit, and which is configured to store the first signal charge before start of a signal output cycle;
- and
- a first charge-voltage conversion circuit configured to output a first pixel signal corresponding to the first signal charge transferred from the first latter-stage storage unit in the signal output cycle, and
- the second color pixel includes:
- a second former-stage storage unit configured to store a second signal charge obtained by photoelectric conversion at second exposure cycle different from the first exposure cycle and read from at least one second light receiving element including the color filter different in color in the sub scanning direction;
- a second latter-stage storage unit configured to store the second signal charge transported from the second former-stage storage unit before start of the signal output cycle;
- and
- a second charge-voltage conversion circuit configured to output a second pixel signal corresponding to the second signal charge transferred from the second latter-stage storage unit in the signal output cycle,
- the solid-state image pickup apparatus comprises a control circuit configured to control so that the first former-stage storage unit and the second former-stage storage unit respectively store the first signal charge and the second signal charge in a storage cycle determined corresponding to a color of the color filter.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.