Patent ID: 6950132

Claim:
An image sensor comprising: a plurality of photo sensor chips mounted on a single mounting substrate, each photo sensor chip having a plurality of photo-electric conversion circuits, a common output line through which signals from said plurality of photo-electric conversion circuits are outputted, and a photo sensor chip output device which outputs signals from said common output line to outside of said photo sensor chip, wherein each said photo-electric conversion circuit has a photo-electric conversion part and an amplifier for amplifying an output signal from the photo-electric conversion part; and a correction circuit output chip mounted on said single mounting substrate, said correction circuit output chip having a noise compensation circuit which receives a noise signal outputted from the amplifier and including an offset component of the amplifier, the noise signal being obtained by resetting an input portion of the amplifier and a photo-electric conversion signal generated in said photo-electric conversion part, wherein said noise compensation circuit corrects a noise component of the photo-electric conversion signal by using the noise signal outputted from the amplifier, wherein said correction circuit output chip is arranged commonly to said plurality of photo sensor chips, wherein an output terminal for outputting a signal to outside of said correction circuit output chip and an output terminal for outputting a signal to outside of said single mounting substrate are connected to each other, and wherein said noise compensation circuit has a plurality of clamp circuits that are serially connected.