Texas Instruments Corporation

Olympus Medical Systems Corporation

Hiromichi Oshikubo

Satoru Adachi

Shoji Kobayashi

Osamu Hosokawa

Koichi Mizobuchi

To reduce the number of capacitative elements on a chip to decrease a surface ratio of a peripheral circuit section including capacitative elements to a pixel array section, while maintaining noise resistance of signals high. There is provided a solid-state imaging device including: a plurality of unit pixels; a plurality of transfer lines; and a plurality of switches, wherein each of the unit pixels includes a photoelectric conversion element and a charge voltage conversion element, and outputs respectively a noise voltage generated when the charge voltage conversion element is reset and a signal-noise sum voltage obtained by adding to the noise voltage a signal voltage generated by photoelectric conversion to the other transfer lines that are connected via the switches to the transfer line to which the pixel group including the unit pixel belongs.

Solid-state imaging device

The invention provides a solid-state image pickup device and method for realizing a higher sensitivity and a higher S/N ratio especially in the low-luminance region while maintaining a wide dynamic range. Plural pixels are integrated in an array configuration on a semiconductor substrate with each pixel having photodiode PD, which receives light and generates and stores photoelectric charge, transfer transistor Tr, which transfers such photoelectric charge from such photodiode, floating diffusion FD, which transfers such photoelectric charge through such transfer transistor, additive capacitive element Cs, which is set connected via the floating diffusion to the photodiode, capacitive coupling transistor Tr, which combines or divides the capacitance of such floating diffusion and the capacitance of such additive capacitive element, and reset transistor Tr, which is connected to such additive capacitive element or floating diffusion; and the capacitance of the floating diffusion is smaller than that of the photodiode.

Image sensor five transistor pixel element with four control signals

This invention is a solid-state image pickup device that solves the problem of limited dynamic range in the high luminance region in an image sensor having white pixels. White pixels or yellow pixels and at least red pixels, green pixels or blue pixels are arranged in array form on the light receiving surface of a semiconductor substrate. White pixels or yellow pixels have an additional capacitance Cconnected to the photodiode via the floating diffusion, a capacitance coupling transistor S that can couple or separate the floating diffusion and the additional capacitance. The proportion of white or yellow pixels to the total number of pixels is higher in a central portion of the light receiving surface than a peripheral portion. The white or yellow pixel may share a floating diffusion with a red, green or blue pixel.

Solid-state image pickup device

The objective of this invention is to perform high-precision tracking error detection and tracking control using digital circuitry at relatively low speed and with a small circuit scale. Tracking servo circuit is formed as a single-chip circuit. Low-pass filters (LPF) and gain control amplifiers (GCA) of the input portion are analog circuits, while the circuits after analog-digital (A/D) converters, that is, offset cancellation circuits, equalizers (EQ), first and second phase difference detectors, adder, low-pass filter (LPF), gain control amplifier (GCA), and servo DSP are all digital circuits.

Growing community of inventors

Tsukuba, Japan

Hiromichi Oshikubo