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AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsYoshio Awatani, Kazuhiro Namiki
Estimating the term…
An image pickup apparatus includes a plurality of pixels, a readout circuit configured to read out pixel signals from the pixels for each pixel row, an analog to digital (AD) converter configured to adjust an AD conversion gain depending on an output level of the readout circuit and to provide a signal from the readout circuit with an AD conversion to output image data, and a controller configured to control the AD conversion gain of the AD converter depending on a predetermined condition.
An image pickup apparatus comprising:
An image pickup system comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Characterised by the spectral characteristics of the filter elements: based on three different wavelength filter elements
Control of cameras or camera modules: camera operation mode switching, e.g. between still and video, sport and normal or high- and low-resolution…
Circuitry of solid-state image sensors [SSIS]; Control thereof: sSIS architectures; Circuits associated therewith
Pixel circuitry, e.g. memories, A/D converters, pixel amplifiers, shared circuits or shared components: comprising amplifiers shared between a…
About 8 years 2 months of term left · ends 23 Dec 2034 (estimated)
Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus including an AD (analog to digital) converter.
Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an image pickup apparatus in Embodiment 1 of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a pixel portion in Embodiment 1.
FIG. 3 is a circuit configuration diagram of a unit pixel in Embodiment 1.
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanied drawings. In each of the drawings, the same elements will be denoted by the same reference numerals and the duplicate descriptions thereof will be omitted.
First, referring to FIG. 1, a configuration of an image pickup apparatus in Embodiment 1 of the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an image pickup apparatus 1 in the present embodiment. The image pickup apparatus 1 is a solid-state image pickup apparatus (CMOS image sensor) mounted with an analog to digital (AD) converter (parallel AD converter).
In FIG. 1, reference numeral 2 denotes an image processing LSI (image processing apparatus). The image processing LSI 2 provides image data (image signal) output from the image pickup apparatus 1 with image processing (development processing) such as white balance processing, gamma processing, and demosaicing processing, and records processed image data in a recording medium 3. The image processing LSI 2 includes a temperature sensor (not illustrated) that detects a temperature inside a camera including the image pickup apparatus 1 and the image processing LSI 2. The image processing LSI 2 includes a built-in CPU 200 (control apparatus). The CPU 200 controls an operation mode of the camera such as a record mode, a play mode, and a standby mode. The CPU 200 controls operation of the image pickup apparatus 1 depending on an image capturing frame rate. The CPU 200 changes a characteristic (for example, a gamma curve LUT) of the gamma processing at image recording.