Photoelectric conversion device and gate voltage control
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorShunsuke Inoue
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In a photoelectric conversion device having a plurality of pixel circuits, a read transistor, a main electrode of which is connected to a charge accumulation node of a photoelectric conversion unit in each pixel circuit is operated in a pentode region, so as to read out a photoelectric conversion signal of each diode to a floating diffusion.
Claims14
A photoelectric conversion device comprising an array of a plurality of pixels, each of which has:
- a photoelectric conversion unit;
- a reset transistor of said photoelectric conversion unit;
- a floating diffusion for holding an output charge from said photoelectric conversion unit;
- an amplification transistor for detecting a potential of said floating diffusion;
- and
- a read transistor, a main electrode of which is connected to a charge accumulation node of said photoelectric conversion unit, and which is operated in a pentode region to read out a photoelectric conversion signal from said photoelectric conversion unit to said floating diffusion.
A photoelectric conversion device comprising an array of a plurality of pixels, each of which has:
- a plurality of photoelectric conversion units stacked in a depth direction;
- reset transistors of said plurality of photoelectric conversion units;
- floating diffusions for holding output charges from said plurality of photoelectric conversion units;
- amplification transistors for detecting potentials of said floating diffusions;
- and
- a plurality of read transistors, a first main electrode of each of which is connected to a charge accumulation node of each photoelectric conversion unit, and which are operated in a pentode region to read out photoelectric conversion signals from said plurality of photoelectric conversion units to said floating diffusions.
A method of controlling a gate voltage of a read transistor in a photoelectric conversion device which comprises at least a photoelectric conversion unit, and a read transistor, a main electrode of which is connected to a charge accumulation node of the photoelectric conversion unit, characterized by comprising a step of:
- controlling the gate voltage to operate the read transistor in a pentode region.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.