Solid-state image pickup apparatus
AssigneesKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation
InventorMinoru Kashiwagi
Life of this patent
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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.
Claims10
A solid-state image pickup apparatus including:
- at least one light receiving element including a color filter, 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.
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 a first light receiving element;
- a first latter-stage storage unit to which the first signal charge is transported from the 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 a second exposure cycle different from the first exposure cycle and read from a second light receiving element;
- 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.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.