IMAGE PICKUP APPARATUS, METHOD OF STARTING IMAGE PICKUP APPARATUS, METHOD FOR PROTECTING IMAGE PICKUP ELEMENT, AND DRIVING TIMING GENERATING APPARATUS OF IMAGE PICKUP ELEMENT

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To start at high speed by dispensing or reducing startup program loading in a timing generating means for programmable driving for outputting a driving timing signal to drive image pickup element. SOLUTION: The image pickup apparatus is provided with a driving timing generating apparatus 13 which has a rewritable nonvolatile memory 13a and volatile memory 13b and outputs a driving timing signal of an image pickup element based on the program data stored in at least either the nonvolatile memory 13a or the volatile 13b. In starting, only when it is confirmed that the program data which are stored in the nonvolatile memory 13a in advance are program data capable of driving the connected image pickup element 16 effectively, the driving timing generating apparatus 13 is started using the program data. COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT