LINEAR IMAGE SENSOR AND DRIVING METHOD THEREFOR

摘要

In the present invention, each pixel (1) is associated with a logical gate circuit (5) and four stages of flip-flops (4a-4d). A control section (7) inputs four phase-discrimination signals to the logical gate circuit (5), and synchronizes a start signal (STR) with four phases that are different and are stipulated by the phase discrimination signals, thereby inputting the start signal to a shift register (4). While read control scanning, according to the shift register (4), is cycled through for all pixels (1), an enable signal (ENBL) is made "0" when the output of a phase discrimination circuit (110) becomes "1", and thereby the charge accumulation time of the pixels (1) is read and can be made equal to a period (T). Meanwhile, when the output of the phase discrimination circuit (110) is "1" the enable signal (ENBL) is made "1", then the accumulated charge of a PD (11) is removed once, and as a result, the charge accumulation time becomes shorter than the read period (T). As a result, the charge accumulation time can be adjusted for each pixel (1), and even if a light source has emission lines using a specific wavelength, a sufficient SN ratio can be secured while signal saturation in a portion of the pixels can be avoided.