Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Canon Precision Inc.

Hiraku Kozuka

Shigetoshi Sugawa

Koji Sawada

Toru Koizumi

Masato Yamanobe

Ihachiro Gofuku

Kazuo Yamazaki

Mineo Shimotsusa

Tetsunobu Kochi

Hisae Shimizu

Takashi Morii

Takahiro Kaihotsu

Izumi Tabata

Yoshiyuki Imanaka

Takaaki Yamaguchi

Takuya Hatsui

Fumihiro Inui

Souta Takeuchi

Muga Mochizuki

Kousuke Kubo

Masahiko Igaki

Chihiro Nagura

Takamasa Sakuragi

Makoto Ogura

Yukihiro Hayakawa

Ikuo Watanabe

Shigeru Nishimura

Kei Fujita

Satoru Hamasaki

Osamu Iketa

Yoshio Koide

Tsutomu Nagao

Yasuji Yokoyama

Provided is a rotary encoder, including: a rotary scale, which has a predetermined pattern including continuous patterns and a rotational angle original point formed thereon with reference to a pattern center, has a polygonal outer shape, and has the rotational angle original point defined with reference to at least one side of sides of the polygonal outer shape; a hub, which includes projections for abutting the sides of the polygonal outer shape of the rotary scale and positioning the rotary scale; a rotating shaft, which is press-fitted into the hub and rotates coaxially with the pattern center of the rotary scale; and detecting units for irradiating the rotary scale with light and detecting the light reflected by the rotary scale.

Rotary encoder and method of assembling the same

To prevent such a situation that a signal from a pixel in a dark state is output at a level shifted from an originally set level to deteriorate an image quality, and to improve the image quality. A photoelectric conversion apparatus according to the present invention includes: a plurality of photoelectric conversion elements; a plurality of amplifying units for amplifying a signal in accordance with a photo-carrier generated in the photoelectric conversion elements; a plurality of signal holding units for holding output signals from the amplifying units through a plurality of switch units; and a control signal supplying unit for supplying a control signal to the switch units through a control line, in which the control line is sequentially connected to the plurality of switch units and has both ends connected to the control signal supplying units, or a change rate with time of an amplitude of a signal held by the signal holding units is set lower than a change rate with time of am amplitude of the control signal at the time of turning off the switch units.

Photoelectric conversion apparatus and contact-type image sensor

In order to reduce the capacitance of a light-receiving element, the present invention provides a light-receiving element which includes a first semiconductor region of the first conductivity type, a second semiconductor region of the second conductivity type, provided on the first semiconductor region, a third semiconductor region of the first conductivity type, provided between the second semiconductor region and an insulating film and an electrode region of the second conductivity type, provided in the second semiconductor region where the third semiconductor region is absent on and above the second semiconductor region, and connected to an anode or cathode electrode consisting of a conductor.

Light-receiving element and photoelectric conversion device

In a photoelectric conversion device including a first-conductivity type first semiconductor region located in a pixel region, a second-conductivity type second semiconductor region provided in the first semiconductor region, and a wiring for electrically connecting the second semiconductor region to a circuit element located outside the pixel region, a shield is provided on the light-incident side of the wiring, via an insulator in such a way that it covers at least part of the wiring and also the shield includes a conductor whose potential stands fixed. This photoelectric conversion device may hardly be affected with low-frequency radiated noises as typified by power-source noise.

Photoelectric conversion device, and image sensor and image input system making use of the same

In a case where first wirings (wirings for a driving power supply (VH)) commonly connected to a plurality of electro-thermal converting elements and adapted to supply an electric power to the plurality of electro-thermal converting elements and second wirings (high voltage grounding wirings (GNDH)) for connecting source areas of respective switching elements to grounding potential are provided, resistance of the second wiring is selected to be smaller than resistance of the first wiring.

Substrate for ink jet recording head, ink jet recording head and ink jet recording apparatus using ink jet recording head

There is provided a method of driving an image sensor which can remove FPN resulting from inter-chip variations without requiring any dark correction. A semiconductor photosensor chip has a plurality of sensor modules mounted on a mounting substrate, and a semiconductor device in which at least an N signal input buffer circuit for receiving N signals, an S signal input buffer circuit for receiving S signals, a differential circuit for calculating any difference between the outputs from the N and S signal input buffer circuits, and a voltage clamping circuit for clamping the output from the differential circuit are formed on a single semiconductor substrate, and the voltage clamping circuit clamps the reset state of S and N signal common output line.

Image sensor and method for driving an image sensor for reducing fixed pattern noise

In a photoelectric conversion device comprising a first-conductivity type first semiconductor region located in a pixel region, a second-conductivity type second semiconductor region provided in the first semiconductor region, and a wiring for electrically connecting the second semiconductor region to a circuit element located outside the pixel region, a shield is provided on the light-incident side of the wiring, via an insulator in such a way that it covers at least part of the wiring and also the shield comprises a conductor whose potential stands fixed. This photoelectric conversion device may hardly be affected with low-frequency radiated noises as typified by power-source noise.

A semiconductor device having a high source breakdown voltage and high performance and high reliability and a liquid jet apparatus are provided. In a semiconductor device having a switching element for flowing current through a load and a circuit for driving the switching element, respectively formed on the same substrate, the circuit has a source follower transistor for generating a drive voltage to be applied to a control electrode of the switching element, and the source region of the source follower transistor has a first doped region connected to the source electrode and a second doped region having an impurity concentration lower than that of the first doped region, the second doped region forming a pn junction with a semiconductor region forming a channel.

Semiconductor device and liquid jet apparatus using the same

In order to reduce the capacitance of a light-receiving element, the present invention provides a light-receiving element comprises a first semiconductor region of the first conductivity type, a second semiconductor region of the second conductivity type, provided on the first semiconductor region, a third semiconductor region of the first conductivity type, provided between the second semiconductor region and an insulating film and an electrode region of the second conductivity type, provided in the second semiconductor region where the third semiconductor region is absent on and above the second semiconductor region, and connected to an anode or cathode electrode consisting of a conductor.

A photoelectric conversion apparatus is comprised of a light-receiving element having a first semiconductor region of a first conduction type, and a second semiconductor region of a second conduction type for storing a charge generated by photoelectric conversion adjacent to the first semiconductor region, a readout electrode for reading a signal based on the charge stored in the second semiconductor region; and at least a pair of electrode portions spaced from each other along a photoreceptive surface so as to place a photoreceptive portion of the second semiconductor region in between, and connected to the first semiconductor region. Applied to the pair of electrode portions is a voltage that completely depletes the photoreceptive portion of the second semiconductor region and that can create a potential gradient for moving the charge stored in the second semiconductor region, to the readout electrode side.

Photoelectric conversion apparatus, driving method thereof, and information processing apparatus

In a one-dimensional or two-dimensional photoelectric converting apparatus for simultaneously executing an accumulation of a photosignal and an output of a signal, in order to remove a reset noise of a sensor unit and to reduce a random noise, the apparatus has a photosensor, a resetting circuit of the photosensor, noise signal holding elements for holding a noise signal when a resetting operation of the photosensor is executed, and a noise signal removing circuit for removing a noise from the signal accumulated in the photosensor after completion of the same resetting operation by using the noise signal held.

Photoelectric conversion apparatus having reset noise holding and removing units

This invention has as its object to provide an image sensor chip and an image sensor using the image sensor chip capable of reducing random noise in the image sensor chip to obtain a high-quality image. An image sensor chip having a plurality of light-receiving element includes a noise reduction circuit for reducing random noise contained in an output signal from the light-receiving element in the ON state and outputting the random noise contained in the output signal from the light-receiving element without any processing in the OFF state, a first control circuit for controlling the ON/OFF state of the noise reduction circuit, a clamp circuit for clamping an output signal output through the noise reduction circuit to a reference potential, and a second control circuit for controlling an ON/OFF state of the clamp circuit. An image sensor chip and an image sensor formed by arraying a plurality of image sensor chips are also provided.

Image sensor noise reduction

For implementing optional setting of resolutions in a main scanning direction and in a sub-scanning direction and attaining of higher recording speed in a low resolution mode, a photoelectric conversion apparatus is provided with a plurality of photodetectors arrayed in the main scanning direction and in the sub-scanning direction, and a resolution switching circuit for effecting switching between resolutions by selecting read signals to be read from the photodetectors arrayed in the main scanning direction and in the sub-scanning direction.

Growing community of inventors

Hiratsuka, Japan

Hiraku Kozuka