Patent ID: 8063960

Claim:
A solid-state imaging device comprising: a reference-signal generating unit that generates a plurality of reference signals, a level difference between adjacent reference signals being fixed, and the plurality of reference signals having the same voltage waveform; a reference-signal selecting unit that selects any one of the plurality of reference signals generated by the reference-signal generating unit; a comparing unit that performs a comparison processing in which a pixel signal and a reference signal selected by the reference-signal selecting unit are compared with each other; and a count unit that performs count processing in parallel with the comparison processing in the comparing unit and stores a count value at a point when the comparison processing is completed, wherein the count unit generates digital data relating to the pixel signal in a 1 LSB step by (a) storing the count value at a point when the comparison processing by the comparing unit is completed for one of the reference signals selected by the reference-signal selecting unit and (b) correcting the stored count value based on results of further comparison processing by the comparing unit for each of the respective remaining reference signals subsequently selected by the reference-signal selecting unit.