Imaging device, imaging module, electronic still camera, and electronic movie camera

Abstract

An imaging device includes: a plurality of pixels (22) which output a pixel signal obtained by photoelectrically converting an incident light; and pixel mixing units (25, 26, 27, 28) which mix pixel signals from pixels of adjacent rows. The pixel mixing units (25, 26, 27, 28) perform a first pixel mixing operation which mixes pixel signals in the same columns and a second pixel mixing operation which mixes pixel signals in the same rows.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to an imaging device having a plurality of pixels arranged in shifted positions and mixing and reading the pixels, an imaging module using the imaging device, an electronic still camera, and an electronic dynamic camera. Background technique [0002] In an imaging device composed of a plurality of pixels arranged in shifted positions, as a technique for improving the speed or sensitivity of reading pixel signals from the imaging device, for example, there is a technique of mixing pixels to read (for example, see Patent Document 1, Patent Document 2). [0003] Patent Document 1 discloses a method of alternately and repeatedly forming pixel rows in which green pixels and magenta pixels are alternately arranged and pixel rows in which cyan pixels and yellow pixels are alternately and repeatedly arranged, and The pixel addition is performed for the green pixel and the cyan pixel or the yellow pixel, and the pixel addition is ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0007] However, when pixel blending is performed as in the aforementioned Patent Document 1, since the shape of the pixel blending becomes an oblique direction, the LPF is inevitably involved in the vertical direction and the horizontal direction, resulting in deterioration of resolution.

In addition, since the shape of pixel blending has anisotropy with respect to the oblique direction, it is necessary to eliminate the anisotropy by image processing, but applying such processing will make the resolution deterioration more noticeable

[0008] In addition, in the pixel mixing shown in Patent Document 2, since the center of gravity of the pixel after pixel mixing is related to the pixel misalignment, the degradation of resolution can be reduced. However, since the pixel itself has a modulation component due to a color filter, It is practically difficult to significantly increase the resolution

In addition, since multiple pixels are mixed in two dimensions, a large number of pixels are actually required to output high-definition moving images, resulting in an increase in the size of the imaging system or a decrease in image quality due to the miniaturization of the pixel size of the image sensor. deterioration

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