Claims
- 1. A solid state image pickup device comprising:
a semiconductor substrate; a number of pixels disposed on one surface of said semiconductor substrate along rows and columns in a matrix shape, each pixel including a photoelectric conversion element for accumulating electric charges and a color filter disposed above the photoelectric conversion element for transmitting at least one of red, green and blue light fluxes of incidence light, including pixels of a same color including two types of pixels having different spectral sensitivities; and an output signal generator for generating an output signal in accordance with charges accumulated in said number of pixels.
- 2. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 1, wherein the same color pixels are red pixels or green pixels.
- 3. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein spectral sensitivities of the two types of the same color pixels are different in a wavelength range from 555 to 605 nm.
- 4. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein said number of pixels are disposed in an effective pixel area and an invalid pixel area defined in the surface of said semiconductor area, the invalid pixel area being defined around the effective pixel area.
- 5. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 4, wherein ones of the two types of the same color pixels are disposed only in the invalid pixel area.
- 6. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein said number of pixels include red, green and blue pixels.
- 7. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein said number of pixels are disposed in a tetragonal matrix shape.
- 8. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein said number of pixels are disposed in a pixel shift layout.
- 9. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 8, wherein said number of pixels include rows having only green pixels and rows including red and blue pixels.
- 10. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 9, wherein two types of red pixels are alternately disposed in row and column directions.
- 11. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 9, wherein two types of green pixels are alternately disposed in row and column directions.
- 12. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein said number of pixels are constituted of only red or green pixels.
- 13. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein said number of pixels are constituted of red and blue pixels.
- 14. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein the two types of the same color pixels are red pixels.
- 15. A solid state image pickup device according to claim 2, wherein the different spectral sensitivities result from different spectral transmission factors of color filters.
- 16. An image pickup apparatus comprising:
at least one solid image pickup device capable of converting an optical image of an object into an electric signal and outputting the electric signal, said at least one solid image pickup device having a number of pixels including two types of same color pixels having different spectral sensitivities; an image pickup optical system for focusing an object image on said at least one solid state image pickup device; a digital signal generator for converting an output signal from said at least one solid state image pickup device into a digital signal and outputting the digital signal; a video signal generator for generating red, green and blue signals from the digital signal output from said digital signal generator and generating a pixel signal for image reproduction by using the red, green and blue signals; and an auto white balance circuit for receiving the red, green and blue signals, detecting a color temperature of a light source, judging a type of the light source from a difference between intensities of light incident upon ones and others of the two types of the same color pixels, and adjusting levels of the red, green and blue signals in said video signal generator in accordance with a detection result of the color temperature and a judgement result of the type of the light source.
- 17. An image pickup apparatus according to claim 16, wherein said auto white balance circuit detects the color temperature and judges the type of the light source for at least one area among a plurality of divided areas of a screen.
- 18. An image pickup apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the type of the light source is judged by using one of formulae (I) to (IV):
- 19. An image pickup apparatus according to claim 16, wherein said auto white balance circuit comprises:
a color temperature detector for detecting the color temperature and outputting a color temperature signal representative of a detection result; a light source judging circuit for judging the type of the light source and outputting a judgement signal representative of a judgement result; and a white balance control circuit for generating a control signal in accordance with the color temperature signal and the judgement signal, the control signal being used for adjusting levels of the red, green and blue signals in said video signal generator.
- 20. An image pickup apparatus according to claim 19, wherein said video signal generator comprises:
a color separator for receiving the digital signal output from said digital signal generator and generating the red, green and blue signals; a gain adjustor for receiving the red, green and blue signals and the control signal, and adjusting the levels of the red, green and blue signals to output adjusted red, green and blue signals; a luminance-color difference signal generator for receiving the adjusted red, green and blue signals and generating a luminance signal, a red color difference signal and a blue color difference signal; and a color difference matrix calculator for receiving the red and blue color difference signals and performing a color difference matrix calculation for the received red and blue color difference signals in accordance with the judgement result of the type of the light source by said auto white balance circuit to generate adjusted red and blue color difference signals.
- 21. An image pickup apparatus according to claim 20, wherein said luminance-color difference signal generator further comprises a linear matrix calculator for receiving the adjusted red, green and blue signals and performing a linear matrix calculation in accordance with the judgement result of the type of the light source by said auto white balance circuit to generate corrected red, green and blue signals.
- 22. An image pickup apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the spectral sensitivities of the two types of the same color pixels are different in a wavelength range from 555 to 605 nm.
Priority Claims (1)
Number |
Date |
Country |
Kind |
2002-059063 |
Mar 2002 |
JP |
|
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-059063, filed on Mar. 5, 2002. The subject matter of this application relates to that of U.S. patent application, filed on Sep. 17, 2002 by the same inventor (attorney's docket 107317-00049). The entire contents of these applications are incorporated herein by reference.