Patent ID: 7733402

Claim:
A solid-state image sensing device comprising: a pixel unit in which cells are two-dimensionally arranged on a semiconductor substrate, each cell including photoelectric converting means for storing an electric charge obtained by photoelectrically converting incident light, reading means for reading out the electric charge stored in the photoelectric converting means to a detection node, amplifying means for amplifying the electric charge read out to the detection node and outputting the amplified electric charge, and resetting means for resetting the detection node; an analog-to-digital converter configured to convert an output analog signal from the amplifying means into a digital signal, and output the digital signal; a controller configured to control the pixel unit and the analog-to-digital converter, and cause the analog-to-digital converter to digitize an analog short-storage-time signal and an analog long-storage-time signal read out, by using a same vertical signal line, from the pixel unit during a storage period of an electric charge of one frame so as to obtain a digitized analog short-storage-time signal and a digitized analog long-storage-time signal; and a wide dynamic range mixer circuit configured to amplify the digitized analog short-storage-time signal to obtain an amplified digitized analog short-storage-time signal, and add the amplified digitized analog short-storage-time signal and the digitized analog long-storage-time signal to make the number of bits larger than the number of bits of the analog-to-digital converter, and output a sum signal.