Patent ID: 7911523

Claim:
An automatic adjuster for image capture circuit, comprising: a photoelectric converter provided on an image capture element so as to generate an effective image signal according to an amount of incident light; a reference signal generator provided on the image capture element for generating a reference signal different from the effective image signal; and an adjuster for adjusting the phase or duty of a pulse used for image capture based on a digital reference signal which is obtained by converting a reference signal output from the image capture element to a digital value; wherein: the image capture element includes, in addition to the reference signal generator, a plurality of photoelectric converters arranged in a two-dimensional layout, a vertical transfer section provided to each column of the photoelectric converters for vertically transferring an image capture signal output from the photoelectric converters, a horizontal transfer section provided to the vertical transfer section for horizontally transferring the image capture signal output from the vertical transfer section, a signal converter for converting the image capture signal output from the horizontal transfer section to a signal voltage or signal current, a reference signal holder for holding the reference signal output from the reference signal generator, and a reference signal retriever for retrieving the reference signal from the reference signal holder; and the reference signal is output to the vertical transfer section, the horizontal transfer section, or the photoelectric converters.