Image pickup device and signal processing method thereof

摘要

An image pickup device is provided, capable of complete correction with data of once analog-to-digital conversion, and prevention of excess use of switches and analog devices and/or erroneous correction, including: an image sensor having a plurality of analog-to-digital converters determining conversion results from a digital signal of higher order bit through separate steps of two or more times; a first correction unit which has a correction factor for correcting nonlinear errors of the plurality of analog-to-digital converters so as to adapt to the analog-to-digital converters and corrects a nonlinear error of a digital signal output from respective analog-to-digital converters based on a correction factor corresponding to respective analog-to-digital converters, characterized in that the first correction unit corrects the nonlinear errors after converting the digital signals from the plurality of analog-to-digital converters into a serial output.

主权项

1. An imaging pickup device comprising:
an image sensor having a pixel region with pixels including photoelectric conversion elements arranged in a two-dimensional form, and a plurality of analog-to-digital converters converting analog signals from pixels to digital signals by determining a higher part of a digital signal including the most significant bit as a first step down to a lower part of the digital signal including the least significant bit, the pixel region and the plurality of analog-to-digital converters being arranged on a common semiconductor substrate, and the image sensor being adapted to output the digital signal formed by each of the plurality of the analog-to-digital converters; and a first correction unit that receives the digital signals output from the image sensor and for correcting nonlinear errors of the digital signal formed by analog-to-digital converters of the plurality of analog-to-digital converters based on a correction factor corresponding to each of the analog-to-digital converters.