Patent ID: 6965408

Claim:
An image pickup apparatus comprising: a plurality of pixels each including a photoelectric conversion unit adapted to convert incident light into an electrical signal and accumulate the electrical signal, an amplifier transistor adapted to amplify and output the signal from said photoelectric conversion unit, a transfer transistor adapted to transfer the electrical signal accumulated in said photoelectric conversion unit to said amplifier transistor, and a processing transistor adapted to perform predetermined processing; and a control circuit adapted to set a signal level supplied to a control electrode of said transfer transistor in order to turn off said transfer transistor to be lower than signal level supplied to a control electrode of said processing transistor in order to turn off said processing transistor, wherein said control circuit includes a scanning circuit including: a shift register; and pulse output circuits respectively arranged on stages of said shift register to output a plurality of pulses on the basis of a pulse from said shift register, said pulse output circuits include level conversion circuits adapted to convert a voltage range of the pulse from said shift register, and said pulse output circuits output pulses having different voltage ranges, and wherein each level conversion circuit includes a punch-through current suppression circuit adapted to suppress a punch-through current.