Patent ID: 7671313

Claim:
An image sensor mounted on a single IC chip comprising: a light receiving element array in which a plurality of picture element cells are arranged in a two-dimension arrangement and divided into a plurality of sub arrays, and each picture element cell has at least a photoelectric conversion element; an analog to digital (A/D) conversion section configured to perform A/D conversion of light signals received from the light receiving element array, the A/D conversion section comprising a plurality of A/D converters, each of the A/D converters disposed in each of the sub arrays and handling a plurality of columns of the picture element cells in each of the sub arrays, and each of the A/D converters comprising: a pulse delay circuit comprising a plurality of delay units connected in series as plural stages configured to delay a pulse signal by a delay time corresponding to the level of the light signal received from the corresponding sub array; and a coding circuit configured to detect the number of the stages of the delay units through which the pulse signal passes during a measuring time period that is a period of a sampling clock signal (CKS) set in advance, and to output A/D conversion data as numerical data corresponding to the number of the stages detected; and a sub array controller for generating control signals for selecting one of the picture element cells, wherein the plurality of sub arrays are in a two-dimension arrangement.