Patent ID: 9407839
Filing Date: 2016-08-02
CPC Classification: H03M,H04N

Claim Text:
1. A solid-state imaging device comprising an AD converter, and a plurality of pixels configured to supply an analog signal to the AD converter, wherein the AD converter comprises: a generation circuit including a plurality of capacitors having binary weighted capacitance values and a switch circuit configured to select at least one of the capacitors from the plurality of capacitors, the generation circuit being configured to generate a comparison signal according to a composite capacitance value of the at least one of the capacitors selected by the switch circuit; a comparator circuit configured to compare the analog signal and the comparison signal; a control circuit configured to perform a first comparison operation to narrow down a range including a value of the analog signal by performing a binary search, in which a value of the comparison signal is changed by changing the composite capacitance value based on a comparison result of the comparator circuit, and to perform a second comparison operation to narrow down a range including the value of the analog signal based on a comparison result of the comparator circuit during a period when the comparison signal is changed at a constant rate, wherein the plurality of pixels supply, to the AD converter, a reference signal corresponding to a reset level of the pixel and an image signal having image information as the analog signals, wherein the AD converter converts the reference signal and the image signal in different ways such that