Patent ID: 8884207

Claim:
A photoelectric conversion element comprising: a plurality of sensor pixels; a multiplexer; a plurality of horizontal transfer registers; a plurality of line delay registers configured to store charges for each corresponding line of line scans; a plurality of addition registers, wherein the addition registers are configured to add signals transferred from the line delay registers; and a plurality of pixel combining registers corresponding to each of the addition registers, wherein the pixel combining registers are configured to add pixels transferred from the addition registers, wherein the sensor pixels are divided into a plurality of blocks such that the sensor pixels correspond to each of the horizontal transfer registers, wherein charges of the blocks of the sensor pixels are transferred to respective corresponding horizontal transfer registers, wherein the multiplexer reads signals from the horizontal transfer registers and outputs the signals, wherein each of the line delay registers stores the signals outputted by the multiplexer for each corresponding line scan, wherein the signals are transferred from the line delay registers to the addition registers, and wherein the signals of the addition registers are transferred to the respective corresponding pixel combining registers.