Texas Instruments Corporation

Francisco J Jimenez-Garrido

Jose Tejada

Rafael Dominguez-Castro

Fernando Medeiro-Hidalgo

The objective of this invention is to provide a solid-state image pickup device and its driving method that has a minimum circuit area and a wide dynamic range. The invention includes: a sensor array SA; a memory M; and a signal determination circuit DC. The sensor array has plural pixels in an array integrated on a semiconductor substrate. Each pixel sequentially outputs a first signal and a second signal. The memory M is connected to each column of pixels array and stores the first signal or the second signal. The signal determination circuit DC outputs signal (SS) such that it works as follows: when the first signal is input to memory M from the pixel, the signal determination circuit DC determines whether the first signal can be used. If so, the first signal is selected and the second signal is discarded and is not output to memory M. When the second signal is selected, the second signal is uploaded to memory M.

Solid state image pickup device and driving method therefore selecting a first signal or a sequentally output second signal for each pixel

This invention is an amplification circuit which limits increased power consumption and circuit surface area use and an imaging device including this amplification circuit. After initially discharging a capacitor, a signal charge corresponding to the difference between pixel signals is transferred repeatedly to the capacitor during an integration phase storing a signal charge proportional to the number of repetitions. The output of amplification is the signal charge accumulated in the capacitor. The gain is independent of the capacitor capacitance ratio. Thus the capacitor size can be smaller than conventional amplification circuits.

Amplifying circuit and imaging device imaging device

This invention is an image pickup device that realizes a wide dynamic range while minimizing circuit area using a pixel array that can pick up a low-sensitivity image and a high-sensitivity image. This invention obtains information (S/S) needed for generating a correction coefficient using one more than the number of pixels readout circuits (RCto RCn+1). This significantly reduces the circuit area compared with the case of using twice as many readout circuits as pixels for generating the correction coefficient.

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Seville, Spain

Francisco J Jimenez-Garrido