Olympus Corporation

Olympus Imaging Corporation

Yuichi Gomi

Seisuke Matsuda

Yukihiro Kuroda

Hideki Kato

Keiichi Mori

Yoshiaki Takemoto

Mitsuhiro Tsukimura

Naoto Fukuoka

Naofumi Sakaguchi

Hiroshi Kikuchi

Yoshio Hagihara

Yoshitaka Tadaki

Haruhisa Saito

Shigeru Hosokai

Hiroshi Itoh

Tsutomu Honda

Naohiro Takazawa

Taishin Yoshida

Shinichi Nakajima

Jun Aoki

Yoshinao Shimada

Yasunari Harada

Kazuhiro Haneda

Chihiro Migita

In a solid-state imaging device, first electric charge is generated by at least two first photoelectric conversion elements in a first exposure period. At least two pieces of the first electric charge are added in a floating diffusion. A first memory stores a first pixel signal that is based on the first electric charge. Second electric charge is generated by at least one second photoelectric conversion element in a second exposure period. At least part of the second exposure period overlaps at least part of the first exposure period. The second electric charge is held in the floating diffusion. A second memory stores a second pixel signal that is based on the second electric charge.

Solid-state imaging device and imaging system

This solid-state imaging device has a plurality of pixels formed by circuit elements distributed in a first and a second semiconductor substrates configured in a stacked structure. The solid-state imaging device has the first and the second semiconductor substrates and a plurality of connection electrodes formed between the first semiconductor substrate and the second semiconductor substrate to electrically connect signal lines of a plurality of photoelectric conversion circuits and signal lines of a plurality of signal processing circuits included in the first and second semiconductor substrates respectively. A plurality of pixel sets are defined to have at least one of the plurality of photoelectric conversion circuits, respectively, and the photoelectric conversion circuits included in the plurality of pixel sets adjacent to each other are connected to the corresponding signal processing circuits via the different connection electrodes which are formed at positions not adjacent to each other, respectively.

Solid-state imaging device and imaging apparatus having circuit elements in plurality of semicondcutor substrates configured in a stacked structure

A solid-state imaging device includes a plurality of pixels and a pixel control circuit. The pixel control circuit is configured to control the signal transfer circuit so that an imaging operation is performed simultaneously in the plurality of pixel group units and a plurality of imaging operations are performed in each of the plurality of pixel group units. In each of the plurality of imaging operations, an imaging signal output from at least one of two or more photoelectric conversion elements included in each of the plurality of pixel group units is transferred to one of two or more memories included in each of the plurality of pixel group units. Each of the two or more memories included in each of the plurality of pixel group units holds the imaging signal in a predetermined order.

Solid-state imaging device and imaging apparatus

This solid-state imaging device includes a first substrate and a second substrate which have circuit elements constituting pixels disposed therein are electrically connected to each other. The pixels includes: a photoelectric conversion element disposed in the first substrate; an amplifier circuit that amplifies a signal generated in the photoelectric conversion element to output the amplified signal; a signal accumulation circuit which is disposed in the second substrate and accumulates the amplified signal which is output from the amplifier circuit; and an output circuit that outputs the amplified signal accumulated in the signal accumulation circuit from the pixel.

Solid-state imaging device, imaging device, and signal reading method

In an imaging device, a plurality of first photoelectric conversion units generate a first signal based on first visible light and infrared light. A plurality of second photoelectric conversion units generate a second signal based on only second visible light. An infrared absorption layer absorbs the infrared light and transmits only the second visible light. A plurality of third photoelectric conversion units generate a third signal based on the infrared light. A signal processing circuit generates a fourth signal by correcting the first signal using the third signal. The signal processing circuit generates a visible light image signal on the basis of the second signal and the fourth signal. The signal processing circuit generates an infrared light image signal on the basis of the third signal.

Imaging device

A solid-state imaging device is a solid-state imaging device in which a first substrate formed on a first semiconductor wafer and a second substrate formed on a second semiconductor wafer are bonded via connect that electrically connects the substrates, wherein the first substrate includes photoelectric conversion units, the second substrate includes an output circuit that acquires a signal generated by the photoelectric conversion unit via the connector and outputs the signal, and dummy connectors that support the first and second bonded substrates are further arranged in a substrate region in which the connectors are not arranged in a substrate region of at least one of the first substrate and the second substrate.

Solid-state imaging device, imaging apparatus, substrate, semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the solid-state imaging device

In a solid-state imaging device and an electronic camera, a first substrate of the solid-state imaging device includes first and second photoelectric converting units, a transfer unit that transfers signal charges of the first and second photoelectric converting units to a connector, and a microlens that causes light to be incident on the first and second photoelectric converting unit. A second substrate of the solid-state imaging device includes first and second memory units that hold signal charges transferred from one or the other of the first and second photoelectric converting unit to the connector and an averaging unit that averages the signal charges held in the first memory unit and the signal charge held in the second memory unit.

Solid-state imaging device and electronic camera

Solid-state imaging device, imaging device, and signal reading medium that accumulates an amplified signal without digitization

A substrate includes a base member having a predetermined thickness, and an electrode array provided in one surface in a thickness direction of the base member and having a plurality of electrodes arranged two-dimensionally in a plan view, and the electrode array includes a central portion and an incremental region provided around the central portion in the planar view and is formed so that a height of the electrodes in the incremental region gradually increase as approaching toward the central portion.

Substrate and semiconductor device

A solid-state imaging device having within a pixel region where pixels containing photoelectric conversion device are two-dimensionally arranged, a plurality of noise extracting pixels for outputting a noise signal not depending on incident light amount provided in an effective pixel region from which image signal associated with object image is outputted, disposed in a manner scattered into two dimensions so that, taking N&#xd7;N (N being an integer of 2 or more) pixels within the effective pixel region as unit block, at least one is provided in each row and in each column within that unit block.

Solid-state imaging device with noise extracing pixels in the effective pixel region and solid-state imaging system using the same

An A/D conversion section () counts clocks whose frequency corresponds to the size of output signals from pixels (), and digitalizes the result so as to create count values, and also calculates a difference between a first count value that relates to the output signal during a reset period of a pixel, and a second count value that relates to the output signal during an exposure period of the pixel, and then outputs this difference as an imaging signal for this pixel. A control unit () controls the A/D conversion section such that the length of the counting period of the first count value is equal to the length of the counting period of the second count value.

Imaging device having pixels and A/D conversion elements

A solid-state image pickup device includes a pixel unit in which pixels are arranged in a two-dimensional manner, the pixels including a photoelectric conversion element, a charge holding unit, a transmission unit, and a first output unit and a second output unit; a second processing unit; and a control unit configured to control exposure of the pixels such that exposure periods for still images of all pixels constituting an area to be read are equal to one another, and control reading of the still image signal and reading of the moving image signal in units of fields, the all pixels constituting the area to be read being divided into a plurality of fields, in such a manner that the still image signal is to be read from both the first output unit and the second output unit in units of fields.

Solid-state image pickup device and image pickup device

The present invention is an image pickup apparatus including a pixel section in which pixels each including a photoelectric conversion section are two-dimensionally arrayed, a transistor that collectively resets the photoelectric conversion sections, an exposure control section that performs control so as to perform exposure for a predetermined time after reset, a signal charge storage section that is light-shielded and stores signal charge generated by the photoelectric conversion sections, a transistor that collectively transfers signal charge from the photoelectric conversion sections to the signal storage section, and a selection transistor that reads still image signal charge for an LV pixel group before signal charge of other pixel groups, then reads signal charge for a live view generated by the LV pixel group one or more times within a time segment during which the still image signal charge of the other pixel groups is read.

Image pick up apparatus and image pick up method capable of reading signal charge for image display by newly performing exposure while reading signal charge for still image by simultaneous exposure of all pixels

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Hachioji, Japan

Yuichi Gomi