Patent ID: 8039781

Claim:
A physical quantity detecting apparatus comprising: a sensitive element array in which sensitive elements for detecting physical quantity are arranged in the form of a matrix; a clock generation circuit for supplying a clock signal; a DA converter for outputting a triangle wave; a counter for counting pulses of the clock signal and outputting at least an upper bit counter signal of a counter value; a column AD conversion circuit provided corresponding to every column or every plurality of columns of the sensitive elements for converting a signal output from each of sensitive elements of the corresponding columns into a digital signal; an output signal bus for transferring the digital signal output from the column AD conversion circuit; and a phase shift code outputting circuit for outputting a lower bit counter signal expressed by using a phase shift code, wherein the column AD conversion circuit includes: a comparator for comparing the signal output from each of the sensitive elements in a given period with potential of the triangle wave; and a conversion memory holding the upper bit counter signal and the lower bit counter signal expressed by using the phase shift code when an output of the comparator is changed, an AD converted value of the column AD conversion circuit is expressed by a combination of the upper bit counter signal and the lower bit counter signal held in the conversion memory.