Solid-state imaging device, method for driving solid-state imaging device, and electronic apparatus using an amplifier and signal lines for low and high gain

Abstract

A solid-state imaging device where when the charge from a photodiode PDis small, all of the charge is transferred to the feedback capacitor to obtain an output voltage amplified with a high gain due to a mirror effect created by a CTIA circuit including an amplifier arranged in a readout circuit and a feedback capacitor, while when the CTIA circuit is saturated, due to automatic reduction of the mirror effect, the remaining excessive charge is moved to a floating diffusion FDhaving a larger capacitance to obtain an output voltage amplified with a low gain and where the obtained voltage is simultaneously output from the pixel and taken into a column sampling circuit. Due to this, a low-luminance signal can be read out with a high gain, a high-luminance signal can be read out with a low gain suppressing saturation, and in addition, signals of a high gain and low gain can be obtained by two reading operations. Further, it becomes possible to improve the lowest object illuminance performance.