Patent ID: 8629935

Claim:
A solid-state imaging device, comprising: a plurality of photoelectric conversion units; a like plurality of transfer units that respectively transfer signal charges generated in the photoelectric conversion units for readout; a voltage supply circuit that supplies a negative supply voltage used in controlling the transfer units, the voltage supply circuit having a charge pump circuit with (i) a pump capacitance that pumps up charge from a voltage source and (ii) a switching circuit that performs a switching control of the charge-pump operation by the pump capacitance based on a frequency of a signal output from an oscillator, the voltage supply circuit having a feedback circuit that compares the negative supply voltage against a reference voltage and feeds back the result of the comparison to the charge pump circuit; a detection unit that (i) detects a variation in the negative supply voltage from a target voltage value, including a variation in the negative supply voltage due to a load change occurring at the time of a shutter operation of the solid-state imaging device in a global shutter mode, and (ii) outputs a signal in response to the detected voltage variation; and a voltage control unit including the oscillator and that receives the signal output by the detection unit and that, based on the signal output by the detection unit, controls the voltage supply circuit by causing the oscillator to output a signal to the switching circuit with a frequency operative to bring the negative supply voltage to the target voltage value faster than if the detection circuit were not present, the voltage control unit bringing the negative supply voltage to the target voltage value by controlling a switching frequency of the charge pump circuit.