Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Junichi Nishizawa

Masaharu Imai

Kenji Kimura

Takashige Tamamushi

Hiroshi Matsui

Masatoshi Ida

Kenji Fukuoka

Atsuo Goto

Toshimasa Akagi

Terumasa Morita

Sohbe Suzuki

Shunpei Tanaka

Jun-ichi Nishizawa

Ikuo Tohukuji

Osamu Onitsuka

A scanning pulse generating circuit has a multiplicity of stages constitued by first basic circuits and second basic circuits which are connected to appear alternatingly in a cascade manner. The first basic circuit is composed of three or four MOS transistors and a feedback capacitor, and includes at least a bootstrap inverter, so as to produce predetermined output pulses upon receipt of driving synchronizing pulses. The second basic circuit has the same construction as the first basic circuit except that it receives different driving synchronizing pulse from that used in the first basic circuit. The output pulses from the respective basic circuits are free from drop of voltage and fluctuation, by virtue of the bootstrap effect. In addiition, power consumption can be reduced without difficulty.

Scanning pulse generating circuit

A solid state image sensor including a number of pixels arranged in a matrix form between row lines and column lines, successive pixels being read out by an XY address method to derive an image signal, each pixel being formed by a normally-on type static induction transistor and a control transistor having a source-drain passage connected to a gate of the static induction transistor, the control transistor being selectively made conductive during a horizontal blanking period to discharge an excess amount of photocarriers stored in the gate of static induction transistor through the source-drain passage.

Solid state image sensor

A solid state image pick-up device comprises a charge storage section for storing the charge corresponding to an image pattern, and a read-out section for reading out the stored charge in this charge storage section. The read-out section is connected to an output of the charge storage section and has a junction type field effect transistor to read out the stored charge as a picture signal.

Solid state image pick-up device

A solid state image pick-up device comprising a large number of picture cells arranged in a matrix. The picture cell comprises a first photoelectric conversion and readout SIT which comprises a gate region operating as a photoelectric conversion area and a second reset SIT which comprises a region (drain or source) electrically connected to the gate region of the first SIT, whereby the photoelectric charges stored in the gate regions of the first SITs of the picture cells in a matrix can be individually reset by means of the related second SITs.

A solid state image sensor including a number of pixels arranged in a matrix form between row lines and column lines, successive pixels being readout by an XY address method to derive an image signal, each pixel being formed by a normally-on type static induction transistor and a vertical type control transistor having a source-drain passage connected to a gate of the static induction transistor, the vertical type control transistor being selectively made conductive during a horizontal blanking period to discharge an excess amount of photocarriers stored in the gate of static induction transistor through the source-drain passage. Since the vertical type control electrode assumes only a very small surface area, the packing density of pixels can be increased materially.

A solid state image sensing device having an array of pixels each including a static induction transistor and a capacitance connected to a gate thereof, a signal readout line connected to sources of the static induction transistors, a first scanning circuit for reading image signals out of the pixels successively in a destructive manner, a second scanning circuit for reading photometry signals out of preselected pixels in a non-destructive manner, an integrating circuit for integrating the photometry signals, a comparison circuit for comparing an integrated value with a predetermined value to produce a detection signal when the integrated value becomes equal to the predetermined value and a control circuit for controlling the first and second scanning circuits in accordance with the detection signal. When the detection signal is produced, the second scanning circuit is stopped and at the same time the first scanning circuit is initiated to readout all the pixels in a destructive manner.

Solid state image sensing device with photometry function

A SIT (Static Induction Transistor) image sensor with a high-sensitivity and a high-fidelity is disclosed. The image sensor comprises a SIT image cell array and a scanning circuit which scans in turn a plurality of SIT image cells in such a manner that respective scanning time in all the cells are equal throughout a sequential scanning operation for the SIT image sensor. A reading line and a refreshing line may be combined into a single line. A differential amplifier is provided for correcting a picture element information to remove a noise component therefrom.

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Ina, Japan

Masaharu Imai