Solid state image pickup apparatus

Details Solid state image pickup apparatus Solid state image pickup apparatus

1983-10-04

1985-08-06

Rubinson, Gene Z.

Facsimile and static presentation processing

Facsimile

Recording apparatus

358209, 358213, 250578, H04N 579

Patent

active

045339546

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates generally to solid state image pickup apparatus which comprises a solid state image pickup device having a plurality of image pickup picture units arranged horizontally and vertically therein and a scanning circuit for driving switches provided for deriving a signal obtained in response to signal charge produced in the image pickup picture units, and more particularly, to an improved solid state image pickup apparatus employing such a solid state image pickup device and a scanning circuit as mentioned above, in which the switch driving manner taken by the scanning circuit is contrived so that electric power consumption is reduced and an image pickup signal output accompanied with suppressed noise is obtained when a signal representing a still image is derived from the solid state image pickup device.


TECHNICAL BACKGROUND

There has been proposed a solid state image pickup apparatus which comprises a solid state image pickup device having an image pickup surface composed of a plurality of image pickup picture units, each of which contains a photoelectric converter and a switching element, and which are arranged in a predetermined pattern, for example, horizontal and vertical rows, and a scanning circuit for causing the switching elements provided in the solid state image pickup device to be conductive selectively and deriving an image pickup signal output obtained in response to signal charge produced by the photoelectric converters through the switching elements made conductive. In the solid state image pickup device employed in such a solid state image pickup apparatus, the switching element is formed by, for example, an insulated gate field effect transistor of the MOS type (hereinafter referred to as a MOS FET) and the photoelectric converter is formed by a photodetecting diode provided in respect of each of the switching elements or a portion of a photoelectric conversion layer provided to overspread the arrangement of the switching elements.
In the case of the situation wherein an image pickup signal output representing a still image is derived from such a solid state image pickup apparatus as mentioned above, that is, the solid state image pickup apparatus is formed into a so-called still television camera, a mechanical or electric shutter is provided to the solid state image pickup device. The mechanical or electric shutter is operative to be shut when the image pickup operation is not performed and to be open during a short period in the image pickup operation. When the shutter is shut, a light coming from the outside is prevented from entering into the image pickup surface of the solid state image pickup device or charge obtained by the photoelectric converters contained in the image pickup picture units in response to a light entering into the image pickup surface is prohibited from becoming signal charge, so that no signal charge is stored in the image pickup picture units. On the other hand, when the shutter is open, the light coming from the outside is permitted to enter into the image pickup surface or the charge obtained by the photoelectric converters contained in the image pickup picture units in response to the light entering into the image pickup surface is allowed to become the signal charge, so that the signal charge is stored in the image pickup picture units and therefore an image pickup signal output representing a still image picked up on that occasion is obtained.
An equivalent circuit of the essential part of one example of such solid state image pickup apparatus as described above is shown in FIG. 1. In this equivalent circuit, a solid state image pickup device 1 is provided with MOS FETs S.sub.11 to S.sub.mn acting as switching elements, respectively, and arranged in the horizontal direction (the direction shown by an arrow H) and the vertical direction (the direction shown by an arrow V) to form the horizontal and vertical rows, and photoelectric converters D.sub.11 to D.sub.mn each having one end connected to one end, for example, a s

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patent: 4399464 (1983-08-01), Hix et al.
patent: 4420773 (1983-12-01), Toyoda et al.
patent: 4472744 (1984-09-01), Inoue et al.

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