Patent ID: 11917317
Assignee: SONY SEMICONDUCTOR SOLUTIONS CORPORATION
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 10:
11. An imaging device, comprising:
a pixel array unit that includes:
a plurality of normal pixels, wherein
the plurality of normal pixels includes a set of normal pixels in two rows by two columns, and
a normal pixel of the plurality of normal pixels is configured to:
generate an analog signal based on photoelectric conversion of incident light; and
output the analog signal; and

a plurality of detection pixels, wherein
the plurality of detection pixels includes a set of detection pixels in two rows by two columns,
the set of detection pixels is adjacent to the set of normal pixels,
a detection pixel of the plurality of detection pixels is configured to:
detect that an amount of change in the incident light becomes larger than a first threshold; and
output a detection result, and

the detection pixel includes:
a pixel circuit configured to generate a voltage signal by photoelectric conversion of the incident light;
a buffer configured to perform impedance conversion of the voltage signal;
a differentiation circuit configured to obtain a differentiation signal corresponding to a change in the voltage signal output from the buffer with respect to a reference value; and
 a comparator configured to compare a level of the differentiation signal with the first threshold and a second threshold to output one of a high-level comparison result or a low-level comparison result as the detection result, wherein the first threshold is higher than the second threshold; and

an analog-to-digital conversion unit configured to convert the analog signal into a digital signal.