Patent ID: 8045027

Claim:
A solid-state imaging apparatus comprising: a pixel section where a plurality of pixels each containing a photoelectric conversion device are formed into an array; a retaining circuit for retaining one or the other of a reset signal and a light signal of the signals from said pixel; and an AD converter, said AD converter comprising: a delay circuit having two input signal terminals to one of the input signal terminals of which said signal retained at said retaining circuit is inputted and to the other one of the input signal terminal of which the other signal not retained at said retaining circuit is inputted, said delay circuit having delay devices connected into a multiple of stages for giving to a running pulse a delay amount corresponding to the extent of a difference between the signals inputted to said one and the other input signal terminals; and an encoder for sampling and encoding a running position of said pulse at every predetermined timing to generate a digital value corresponding to the difference between said input signals.